Wow.  Major dust has settled on the blog.  It's been nearly 2 weeks since I've posted anything here, and I'm not gonna lie... it's been great.  I a little break from the blog and client work has been exactly what the photography doctor ordered.  Oh... and there was this little trip to New Orleans that was pretty fantastic, too. One of the on-line photography forums I'm a member of decided several months ago that it'd be great to get together for a few days and talk about/demo/share topics and ideas around any and all things photography, and an idea was born.  Last week was the culmination of this plan as the first edition of the workshop took place in New Orleans.  And one of the best parts about this whole gig was that other than hotel conference rooms (cost split by 17 people) and travel accommodations, there was no workshop fee.  Everyone checked their egos at the door and came with an open mind, an eagerness to learn, and a willingness to share.  Prior to arriving, we voted on a few topics to cover and had people volunteer to teach/demo on those topics with plenty of time built in for hands-on shooting to practice what was shared.  Another thing that totally rocked was how well everyone got along.  It was kinda cool to show up and feel like I already knew everyone even though I'd only met just a couple of the people in person prior to that.  The group really meshed incredibly well, and I'm excited about some of the the new things I learned and, more importantly, the new friendships that were formed.  I mean, the other 16 photogs even threw me a surprise baby shower with killer gifts one day at lunch.  Totally unexpected, and ridiculously awesome! Here's a few non-workshop images from the first day when my friends Karen & Michele and I were walking around the French Quarter.  All images were created with available light.  I'll share images from some of the hands-on workshop shoots in part 2 post. Here's Michele. I went to an Austin workshop a couple years ago and have become good friends with a couple people from that workshop, and Michele is one of them.

And here's Karen.  I met her in Austin as well.  BTW, Karen makes some of the most creative, fun lunches for her kiddos that I've ever seen.  She even brought me a couple animal shaped sandwich cutters so I can try out making some cool lunches for baby Nicolosi one day.  My favorite was the unicorn.

We spent a fair amount of the day being models for each other while doing some available-light shooting.  Obviously both Karen and Michele were easy to work with. (Sorry, ladies, I couldn't return the favor).

This dude was awe. some.  The guy holdin' the strings was pretty talented, too.

A few steps across the street from the big church a couple images up.

This reminds me of an image I took on our honeymoon in Italy.

Meet Giovanni.  This guy was a sweet/scary/talkative local artist we met down near the church.  He had a ton of character, and a TON of things to say.  Here he was framing up my mug.

Love this black and white of him.

That evening we were walking down near Pat O'briens, and thre was this really cool old wall right next door.  There were a couple groups doing a haunted New Orleans walking tour, and I grabbed this image as a few members from one of the groups were walking by.  I thought it kinda had an appropriately spooky feel to it.

More images tomorrow.