Imaging USA

I am currently deep in the heart of Texas in one of my favorite North American cities, San Antonio.  I am told that Hemingway called it one of the four unique american cities (San Franciso, Boston, New Orleans, and San Antoio). Althogh I have been unable to find the quote, I can belive it. This really is an interesting place.

I try to go to the Imaging USA conference every year. It’s put on by the PPA, which is primarily wedding and portrait photographers, but the conference is applicable to any professional photographer. Although the vendor area is quite interesting, it is the presentations that drive me to attend. The chance to hear some of the best photographers in the world discuss their work is whole reason I’m here.

As well, I’ve also found that conference trip in January is an excellent time to step away from work, life, and other day to day distractions and take some time to reflect and think. Besides recharging the batteries a little, it’s a great way to take a “big picture” look at things. I consider this so useful, I might even start taking a “reflection” trip every six months.

It’s currently Saturday night and the conference does not officially start until tomorrow. However, there have been pre-conference courses going on for the past three days. The pre-conference and pre-conference courses are another good reason to be here. If you are pursuing a CPP designation, the training courses that happen during the will be a huge help. For me, since there are no PPA regional groups in Canada, this is also where I wrote my CPP exam.

The trip down

Since it hasn’t started yet, I’ll wait to tell you about the conference itself and discus my trip here.

I usually book my conference trip in the Spring, so by the time the conference actually comes around I have usually forgotten everything about my reservations. Thank goodness for calendars and email reminders.

Although, I like San Antonio it’s a hard place to get to from Toronto. There are no direct flights, which means not only having to change plans. It usually means a small feeder airline out of Toronto. If you think traveling with photo gear is hard, try some of the tiny planes. Not to mention the challenge of 6’4″ me trying to fit into a plane designed for people no taller than 5’8″. I don’t fly in these planes, I wear them .

We are having a yellow-orange-purple with blue strips alert in Toronto, so I was advised to arrive early for the extra security checks – including the possible patdown. Dutifully, I arrived 2 and a half hours before my flight and found myself waiting at the gate 30 minutes later.

Luckily, Toronto now has free wifi in the airport, so I found the nearest Starbucks, loaded up with caffeine,  broke out the laptop. A welcome change form the past, where they tried to charge some serious coin for a bit of connectivity. I recently acquired a portable battery unit form Hypermac, which can power up the ipad, iphone, and mac book I travel with. My mac air is a little light in battery capacity, to this makes a real difference and give me some serious running time. You can find ut more about them at here. I love mine.

Cramming myself into the little plane proved challenging not just for me, but for my luggage. I have been considering some rolling luggage for my camera gear, but I am not sure of this plan now. Everyone with rolling luggage was forced to gate check it before boarding. My camera bag just fit into an overhead bin, but it was a close thing, as they were considering gate checking it. I am going to be checking out the luggage vendors at the conference with this in mind. Luckily a and my luggage got to ride in comfort. As well, during my planning earlier in the year, I was smart enough to pick one of the solo seats giving me a window AND an aisle.

I changed planes in Washington, DC, which can sometimes be a problem, but we arrived in plenty of time and it was a relaxed trip to the next gate and my next flight. This time one a full sized plane . I was also thinking went I booked this trip, as I upgraded to the more legroom seats.  Its a little weird when you book this far in advance, as I didn’t remember this until I was checking in and seating down. It’s like a pleasant surprise preset for yourself.

I discovered that my hotel has free wifi, but only in the lobby. Normally a real pain, but the Westin has a pretty impressive lobby and the furniture there is better than my room.

Unfortunately, it has been a rainy misty day that wasn’t the best for walking around the city, but the weather is supposed to be above 20C and sunny by Monday…..

More to come,

Scott