Several years ago, I went to Jacksonville Beach to attend a photography workshop with renowned wedding photographers, Zach and Jody Gray. The workshop left a big impression and has influenced my style and approach to a wedding. Since then, I have come to know them a lot better from both Twitter and Facebook.
When I heard they were coming to Orlando as part of the Pass Premier tour, I signed up. Pass Premier is a new tool that photographers can use to help make it easier to share our photographs with our clients. I’ll be explaining it more in the coming months and I’m looking forward to trying it with upcoming weddings!
Pass Premier is a product by David Jay. Formerly a wedding photographer, David is mostly focused on providing innovative tools to photographers for sharing and promoting their photographs.
The event was held at the Mela Room off of Orange Blossom Trail. I had only known this location for club parties, but they are trying to host more weddings and events.
Promise Tangeman started the night off by talking about how to develop and embrace a brand identity. She has helped many photographers as well as some smaller scale celebrities develop a brand.
She was followed by Kevin Swan, a wedding photographer who has developed a very successful album company. He demonstrated a new tool by his company for album design. Album design is something that is very important, but it is labor intensive. I plan on trying Kevin’s album design software to see if it helps reduce the time that it takes for me to create an album design.
After a short break, Zach and Jody Gray hit the stage. They talked for nearly two hours about building your business. It was a great presentation and much different than the lighting workshop I attended several years prior. After about 8 pages of diligent notes, my head was spinning with ideas to improve the business. It was refreshing that they said that taking great pictures needs to be second nature and that our focus as photographers is to provide great guest satisfaction.
The final presentation of the night was by David Jay and it showcased Pass. It’s a very interesting and innovative way of sharing images. I’m very interested to start using it and seeing how my couples respond. It definitely makes it easier to get the photos in to the hands of everyone.
My favorite part about the whole experience was the networking opportunities. I met many great people from all over Florida, and it was nice to meet some new friends in this industry.
There are only a few more dates to this bus tour. From the vibe in the room, I could tell a lot of people left inspired. I know I did!
Pass Premier - David Jay (L) and Promise Tangeman (R)
Pass Premier - Zach and Jody Gray Photography
