The Social Event of July

Well I attended the Sparkdaddy.net meet and great last night over at the Speakeasy in OKC. It was definitely a good time. There were so many photographers I hadn't met and several I'd heard of/talked to, but hadn't seen face to face. We all exchanged business cards with our FB and Model Mayhem accounts. I think Chuck from ePhoto and I are FINALLY going to get our butts in gear and collaborate. I'm really stoked about that. I've admired his work for a long time now, and when I walked in the door and he insisted we talk before I leave, I got pretty excited.

It's an odd feeling having people know your name without knowing theirs. I think sometimes it's easier for the photographers. They go home with a handfull of cards with our faces and names, but we as models go home with cards saying their names and have other people's faces. So over the next days when you're trying to book shoots from the business cards, there's always that mystery of, 'was that the really cool one with lots of ideas, or was that the sort of creepy dude that asked what lingerie I own?' With my experience so far, it always works out, but it's definitely an interesting situation.

I remember going to a few mixers while I was down in Texas, booking a shoot from a name on a postcard after the fact, showing up and being relieved that I was wrong about who I thought it was actually with. It's interesting that some photographers don't have a picture of themselves anywhere on their sites. As a model, especially if you haven't met before, it's always nice to be able to match a face to a name BEFORE showing up at a shoot. I know it always relaxes me a little bit.

Anyway, it was cool having a few beers and eating french fries with new and old models, fresh and also experienced photographers. Lee Baxley, from Tulsa, and I finally met. We've been trying to schedule something for a while. Now that I'm finally out of hair school and in a salon, my schedule is super flexible and will allow me to make that trip up to Tulsa for a couple days. I'm planning a trip up sometime the second week of August, so all you Tulsa photogs get ready!

As one final note, if you weren't able to get out to the meet and great, beer social, you definitely need to next time! AND all those models and photogs and not a single picture? What were we thinking?