I’m Still Alive and Well – I Promise!

Good Morning Everybody,

From the emails and phone calls we've been receiving at the studio over the last few weeks, folks having been wondering whether or not I've fallen off the face of the earth or even worse ;~) Well, let the rumor mill subside - I am indeed still alive and well – and maybe a few travel pounds less light than when we left for Eastern Europe September 8, 2013 ;~) 

I've got lots to fill you in on but let me give you a quick update today and I'll plan to stop by again in the upcoming days to fill in some details and tell you about some cool things happening around  DigitalProTalk.

My last post was several weeks ago [link].  We returned to the States after making the Atlantic crossing from England, visited a few friends in Florida, and then headed home after our two and half months traveling through Europe landing back home November 18, 2013.  During those thousands of miles of travel I made several thousands of photographs – about 29,000 but more on that later.

Home For The Holidays – Not Quite!

We were only home for ten days but were thrown into the Holiday rush getting last minute orders out for clients and just plain getting ready for the quickly approaching holidays. Then the day after Thanksgiving, we headed to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a three week stay enjoying the warm weather, beautiful sunrises (like the one below) and gorgeous sunsets and a few more thousand photos. Like I mentioned above, more on the photographs later.

We landed back in town 3 days before Christmas and then were immediately caught up in the rush of the holidays - all this while working like crazy on our upcoming convention, PhotoPro Expo 2014.  Needless to say, it's been crazy, busy around here. But, I am still alive and well ;~)

Happy New Year! And Off To Imaging USA Convention

We were actually home for 18 days and then it was off to Imaging USA Convention being held in Phoenix , AZ this year.  My buddy, Ralph Romaguera has been  President of the Professional Photographers of America this past year and we wanted to give him our full support and any help where needed.

We just returned last week from the Imaging USA Convention  where we had a great time visiting friends and making many new ones; exploring the trade show from front-to-back and back-to-front; and having the wonderful opportunity to hang out with the legendary singer and photographer Kenny Rogers and his mentor, acclaimed photographer and Ansel Adams assistant, John Sexton. 

You heard me right – Kenny Rogers was awarded the Honorary Master Of Photography Degree from Professional Photographers of America.  If you didn’t know it before – Kenny is quite an acclaimed photographer in his own right. He has published three books on the subject and is producing a fourth as we speak. I own his first, “Your Friends and Mine.” [link]  It is really well done – very similar in stile of Karsh portraits.

Anyway, since my good friend Ralph is president of PPA this year, he included us in all the special activities, including hanging with Kenny and John….pretty cool.  I have to tell you, both men were true down to earth gentlemen. Their work was exceptional. The experience was a real pleasure.

I have to tell you too – in addition to the good times we were having, I was humbled by the fact that I was to receive a very high honor myself at the Awards Ceremony.  Turns out I received the Helen B. Yancy Award for distinguished service to the industry. Turns out I was only the seventh person ever to receive this award.  It was very exciting as well as quite humbling. Per usual… LaDawn looked fabulous on our way to the Awards Banquet ;~)

But now the partying and good times have come to a screeching halt as we are fully ramped-up in getting PhotoPro Expo 2014 ready for launch February 6th.

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On that note gang, I’m out of here.  Hope you enjoyed the latest update and a few images from our travels.  Tomorrow I want to give you an update on the PhotoPro Expo 2014 Convention and a very cool Print Competition Webcast coming up.  You can get a lot of info about the webcast right here. Just scroll down a bit to see the registration links. This is areal educational experience and one not to be missed.

But for now, I’ve got to scoot and get back to work. LaDawn and I have been working non-stop to make this the biggest show ever and it’s shaping up to be just that.

I promise, you’ll be hearing from me several times these next few weeks so please stay tuned.

All the best,  David