What do wedding photographers do when there are no weddings to shoot?

The slow winter months is a chance for wedding photographers to catch up on album design, tweak their websites and blogs, attend workshops and get together with other wedding photographers and share our experiences (and a beer or two). Last Tuesday I had a chance to meet up with wedding photographer Neil VanNierk who travelled up from New Jersey to share some of his knowlege. Neil is one of the reasons I got into wedding photography years ago so it was great to hang out and glean some knowlege out of him.

Melissa Tirado, the “Queen” senior admin over at DWF (Digital wedding forum) while I’m an admin guy and moderator over at the competing Professional Wedding Photographers (PWP) website we still managed to get along famously (though she was calling me bizzaro-melissa).

The following day I braved rush-hour traffic and clogged rotaries over to St. Paul’s Church in Watertown.

Neil gives a pointer to George Mitchell, a relatively new member to PWP, drove down from New Hampshire to attend the workshop.

Claudia Kronenberg, one of my favorite photographers, came all the way from Nantucket to be a model for us. If you have ever read Grace Ormand Wedding, you have seen Claudia’s work. I think a world-class high-profile fashion/wedding photographer modeling for us was ironic on many, many levels…

Zofia demonstrates for me her shooting style. She’s so good, she doesn’t need to look through the lens–love it!

Kerrie who hosted the workshop and worked non-stop to put it together and again for Neil for trekking up from Jersey and hanging out.