A great week at NEIPP and PPANE

I just got back from a fabulous week of education and fun at the New England Institute of Professional Photography on Cape Cod.  The photos above show Michael and Tina Timmons, the instructors in my class, BEFORE and AFTER we wore them out answering every question at least twice!

We had a blast AND learned so much.  Seriously, I have to retype my notes before I forget what I scribbled!

Thanks to everybody in the class ~ Gail, Ella, Nancy, Andrea, Mark, Rick and Doug who asked the right questions to get us to open up our inner artistes.

I can't wait for Vermont "mud season" to be over so I can head out and shoot scenery.  I never thought I'd say that, being a dyed-in-the-wool portrait artiste.

Well, of course it was April on Cape Cod, so we had our share of wind and rain to deal with.  Our trip to the beach was, well, blustery.  I had to admire David, a student who came all the way from Nigeria to join us for sticking with it in the beach shoot.  It was NIPPY!  Thanks to Nancy Green and Steve Lourenco for so many of these great photographs.

We took our instructors out to dinner on Wednesday and it happened to be Michael's birthday.  He's from Michigan, so a big lobster was in his plans.  (This is the same guy who complained all week that NEIPP was over feeding him.)  It's true we felt like they fed us every 20 minutes.

I did get to take some special portraits in my spare time (!).  I've known Melvin Guante and Joyce Holt for a long time and knew they'd both like updated head shots.  Then I met David Immanuel and interviewed him for the PPANE newsletter since he came such a lo-o-o-ng way, so he needed to be photographed, too.  We found a great spot inside the hotel (since it rained...a lot).

Below are some of my class projects - all taken inside the hotel, as per our assignment.  I really enjoyed learning new techniques for "arting up" these images.  Now...how to market this kind of thing?

Here's the whole NEIPP gang: