Yesterday turned out to be quite the adventure.
I drove to Chicago for the Stand Out Photography Forum sponsored by PhaseOne and various other vendors. It appealed to me because I had been to a lot of conferences for education but very few with the focus on being commercially active.
And while my expectations were open, of all the things I didn't expect was to hit a rather simple construction gap between new pavement and old pavement on i-90 (just before hitting i-94) and it shaking my muffler loose. The "bump" caused my muffler to completely dislodge from my car. I ended up dragging the bulk of my muffler for the last bit of the trip before I landed at the conference. It was unexpected and through my day off a bit.
But I managed to recover and I only missed part of two presentations. I was going to hear a select few talks, get my sensor cleaned, and to hopefully learn a thing or two. I did just that. I was able to have my firmware updated, sensor cleaned, caps replaced, and I talked with some great people. A success on many accounts.
The forum was pretty neat. I managed to meet quite a few photographers. I was really surprised that people like Clay Cook and Jeff Rojas were so accessible. I had a solid conversation with them. That was pretty special and I was thankful to speak with them both. The legendary Albert Watson was there as well but I didn't manage to speak with him personally, just hear his talk (still good!). All of their presentations were great, informative and heartfelt. I also got to sit down with Erika Blatt from Wonderful Machine. I'm always thankful when I can have a one on one conversation about marketing and photography. Thanks Erika!
All in all it was a solid day. Photography discussed and the trusty steed was fixed for another day... shout out to Teloloapan Muffler for a fix on the go... they were totally awesome and managed to fix my car as I drove in with a dragging muffler. Classic little adventure. Have a solid weekend out there! More to follow.
