Every presentation isn’t perfect. The presenters aren’t always cute or funny (at least not intentionally). Sometimes their delivery is downright boring. And these are all of the best reasons to be at conferences like Inspire Photo in Boston. I know what you’re thinking ... Huh? Here’s what I mean...
The speakers at Inspire_Photo weren’t there because this was another stop on the tour. Few of them ever do workshops and almost none have ever traveled to teach. Every single one is a working, professional photographer with a successful studio. They may not have been polished, but every presentation was chalk full of very practical advice. Note pages were filled. The time went too fast.
As great as the teaching was it wasn’t the only reason to attend the conference. The reason to attend was the breakfasts and lunches and dinners and after dinners. The karaoke and the dancing (mostly very bad!) and the laughter and most importantly, the connection. These are the reasons to attend Inspire. (well - maybe not the Karaoke ...)
Inspire is different. It is a conference put on by photographers for photographers. While Pictage is a financial sponsor, along with Adorama, Shoot dot Edit, and a number of others, we have little voice in the organization and no voice in who speaks and on what subjects, let alone what they say. Frankly, I think that’s how it should be. It’s one of the reasons I love this conference.
I wish there were more Inspires. To me, this is the conference format that works. Regional conferences put on by photographers in that region to teach and discuss topics that are important within that region. Thanks so much to all of the great folks who did the hard work to make it happen.
4 comments:
not the karaoke, huh? I take offense to that ;)
Thank you for always supporting and encouraging us at Inspire! Can't wait until next year!!
I'm not cute?
Spot on in your thoughts of what we strive to create every year for all the photographers in the Boston and New England region.
The presentations every year are all content.
Speakers are there to teach and not plug or sell and most of the sessions start out with " I'm Joe from Joe Blow Studio and I'm going to talk about setting up business processes to make your studio more efficient and profitable" and then they jump into the meat of the talk. That is my favorite thing about these wonderfully hard working humble people. They don't care to talk about anything other than providing the content that they have spent countless hours learning and then putting into a format to teach.
Next time there's an opportunity for karaoke, everyone should definitely keep in mind that Mr. Collins here has quite a voice. And by that I mean you should just go ahead and make him sing. Just a thought (among plenty of greater thoughts, as above)! :]
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