For opening night this year at WPPI they named 12 of us "Young Guns" and they joined together two ballrooms to fit 2500 people and then gave us each a few minutes to share some tips with the group.

Skip Cohen, who's in charge of WPPI, sat us all down and said that there is ONE reason we were invited to give this presentation. It wasn't because we were the best photographers, or the best business people, he said it was because we were unique, different and we didn't let ourselves blend in to the masses. Wow. It's a scary thing thinking about an industry like ours and how important it is to stand apart and to be different. It's easy to be the same but we need to fight that urge because in the long run it will really hurt us.

Everyone shared some great ideas and I talked about how important it is to have a unique website. Our websites are often the only interaction potential clients will ever have with us and I've seen too many photographers become commodities and have to lower their prices because they adopted a website that looked just like somebody elses.

Checkout this fun little video Paul put together from the night. I'll be posting the audio content from this as well as from my platform presentation on the Freedom Club.

CLICK HERE for the video!

Rock on!
DJ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Opensourcep...young-guns.html

Awesome, wish I could have been there to hear all you Young Guns.

David, it was great to listen to you as well as to finally meet you after Young Guns (even if it was for all of one minute!)

I was there! Front and Center. Well its 3rd row from the front, right hand side section.

DJ, you are such an awesome speaker. You speak the truth, and people hangs on to every word you say. Believe me, I am one of them. Congrats on being one of the Twelve Young Guns. So true our industry is changing so fast, right before our own very eyes. I don't know about them toy popguns though (Jose Villa's idea maybe???).

What you didnt bring your airsoft? j/k!!

Dooode...you had to wear THE jacket didn't you?

Dude
I'm going down... in a blaze of glory!!!
Get it
young guns
bon jovi song for the movie... young guns

When one of the speakers asked who came fom the farthest, I heard someone behind me say Cyprus and I knew it was you. I turned around to see if I could figure out who said it but there where just too many faces.

D.J.

Im in the Airport Flying back to D.C. It's sucks that I did not get a chance to meet you! There was so much going on. Man what a wild ride. Hope to meet soon. You were great. I finally got a chance to meet so many wonderful new friends. Take care.

Andy

Good job with your speech David! I saw your demo of Showit Site (?) last night too and that looks like a rockin' app. You really have your fingers on the pulse of the photographic community and your putting stuff out there that will bring all of us to the next level. Keep it up!

Hey Joel,

Not my idea, but I played along.. thanks for being there.

jose villa