Things have been a bit silent in the office for the past few days and with good reason :: I was gone.
😉
I hopped a plane to Utah Thursday morning to gain inspiration, knowledge, new friends and an renewing commitment to my craft. I was to attend the first Photo Native.
I’m a huge believer in continuing education. Learning never ends in the classroom and the best way to get better, at anything!, is by practice, experimentation, failure…and repeat. Attending Photo Native was a beautiful experience. I met some unbelievably kind people simply by getting out of my comfort zone. I struck up a conversation with a woman in line for the train from the airport and realized that not only does she live in the area of suburb Seattle that I visit nearly every year, but her daughter is doing her Mission in Minnesota and her soon-to-be daughter-in-law is also from Minnesota. She wouldn’t hear of me walking the few miles from the train station to my condo and insisted on giving me a ride.
I met an old man who told me about a time when he took a woman on a date and she ended up coming home with him that night. In the morning, she had her sister bring all her thing over to his house. Four days later, they got married. They stayed by each other’s sides through moves, three children, and her diagnosis of MS. She died six months ago, after 47 1/2 years of marriage. As he told me his story, he smiled to himself and said that he wouldn’t change a thing.
I bumped into a retired cowboy who proceeded to tell me about his beautiful wife and how they owned a relatively new wedding venue together in the foothills of the mountain. We ended up calling his wife to have her meet us and I spent the next hour picking their brains and mulling over their iPad images of their 2.5 acre beauty Barb Wire and Lace. How gorgeous is this setting!? She gave me a ride to my condo that night and then also picked me up to bring me to the conference the next morning.
These encounters, and a few more, were before the doors of Photo Native opened. They happened on the streets of Lindon and Pleasant Grove. By opening my ears, silencing my inner-introvert and diving into conversations with complete strangers, opportunities were created and kindness poured forth like a raging river. People want to be nice. They want to share their stories. They want to be hear and be heard. It really is a beautiful world we live in.
Attending a workshop with 140+ fellow peers, knowing nothing of them outside of their online personas, can be a daunting experience…but, man, is it rewarding. The speakers were enlightening, the tips were spot on, the knowledge shared and the connections made…this workshop was absolutely worth it and then some.
