Friend Ray Santana, called the other day about featuring my business on Pro Photo Hub’s blog. I humbly accepted as I boarded a plane to NYC. I was off the give a workshop and it was perfect timing. Ray is one of those guys that knows everyone and knows all the cool gadgets for us to play with. If I were you, I would RSS or bookmark his site. He’s got some cool interviews with some of the industries coolest photographers, including me, yay!!! You can find my interview just below good friend, David Jay’s.

Click here to read my interview: Pro Photo Hub Blog

Thanks, Uncle Ray for having me. I hope to see you sooner than later. best ~

The wedding photography industry has needed a book like this for a long time. It’s a refreshing insight to core of every business, you as a person. I have listened to this book mulitple times with my morning coffee. I will listen to to again and again for inspiration. If you are aspiring or an old pro, this is the book for you. It asks the important quesion, who are you as a person beyond your camra and photography.

Get you copy today:

Fast Track Photographer Book

If you have read or listened to you copy, please leave a comment and tell me what you think.

It was the longest and most fun day I have had in a long time. Ron dawson of Cinematic Studio gathered 25 of the hottest photographers in the industry together for 2 good causes. We were all kept in the dark till that day of the event. Amazing to me that people from all over the country would come with such enthusiasm and not know what they are doing. Ron is the man! I guess you just let them know that all the effort will go to charity and they humbly accept.

Here what we did. This all took place at Robert Evans Studios in Universal City, California. We were broken up in to two different teams and asked to write, produce, direct, film, act and edit a reality short film in 24 hours. Simple right? I don’t think so. I can’t tell you what our team created, but I can share the image below to give you a hint. We also did a PSA (Public Service Announcement) for our charity, Now I lay me down to sleep. The other team did one for Thirst Relief International. Filming ended around midnight and the editing began. Editing lasted through the night. We all gathered the next morning to preview what the other team had create. Amazing and hilarious. Skip and Arlene came from WPPI headquarters to get a sneak peek.

There will be a website dedicated to the movies and and the public gets to vote on who the winner will be. The winning video will be shown at the WPPI awards night in from of thousands of photographers. Amazing! The winning teams charity will be given $1000, the 2nd place team/charity will be given $500. Mike Colon matched the amount, with other undisclosed donations. A total of $5000 goes to charity. WOW!!! Stay tuned to see the video and much more.

Thanks to all the people involved and all the hard work that went into putting this together. Lets do it again, next year. In no particular order, here’s who was involved. Jim Garner, Dane Sanders, [b]ecker, Jasmine Star, David Jay, Bronson Plate, Mike Colon, Alisha and Brook Todd, Steve and Jen Bebb, Gene Higa, Ann Hamilton, Jules Bianchi, Kenny Kim, Amber Holritz, Kevin Kubota, Catherine Hall, Michele Celentano, Joe Photo, Rob Evans, Chris and Katie Humphreys, Jessica Claire and one “surprise” guest

http://www.thelongestday.tv/

Thanks to Jules, Gustavo, Dave, and Dane for the pictures below.

It’s been a couple of days since we have been down in here in Guadalajara, Mexico. Today was the first real day of the workshop, filled with business and a engagement shoot. Jose and Cameron are rocking the house. Joel Serrato is here doing his thing, you know the super 8 thing. Very gifted! The Hacienda El Carmen is one of the most beautiful locations I have ever visited in Mexico. Everywhere you look there’s inspiration with wild peacocks to the history of the hacienda. Tomorrow, Ann Hamilton and I will share with the group about destination weddings. It’s been such a blessing to be part of a inspiration group and to have amazing friends. I will look forward to the next two days. More images and stories to come.

I have many passions in life. One of those passions is teaching. I have played with the idea of having my very own workshops and I wanted to do them with my industry friends. One thing, that we all learned yesterday was that all things are possible. I have been involved in the wedding industry for 13 years now and have learned what works and what does not work. I feel that my business is in a good place and I am ready to pay it forward. It’s important that we all help one another.

So what’s Gene Higa workshops, you ask? It’s a series of wedding/portrait photography workshops geared towards the passionate photographer. Weather you in your first year or looking to revamp your 20 year career. We will discuss everything and answer the questions that are important to you. I will be offering full one day, three days and one on one workshops. It’s up to you to be part of the group of have a intimate session with me and one of my industry friends. Each workshop will be intimate, as I am all about quality over quantity.

I will be a open book in all of workshops and not hold back. Anything’s game. I am looking for hosts around the country. So if you are interested or open to the possibility, let me know.

I have also decided that part of the income from all of the workshops will be donated to American Cancer Society. I have had family and friends families affected by this terrible disease, that it’s time to start giving back.
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Here’s what photographers are saying:

It was an experience that transcended words. Thank you Gene-O & JGroupp for giving us invaluable access into your worlds, and to all who attended for injecting the energy that made it all so special. I am grateful to have you
all in my life. If there is ANYTHING that I can EVER do for ANY of you, please do not hesitate…it would be an honor. - tomas flint
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Gene! You rock bro! I am totally inspired by you and your images. Indeed I am a better man now knowing you and Anne:) I hope to stay in touch and grow this fantastic relationship. You are always welcome in Rochester,NY. Please let me know if there is anthing I may be able to assist you with.

Much love to you, Erich Camping
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Gene, it was so good to go to your seminar and I learned some good things from Tuesday. The seminar was well put together and executed. Everything went smoothly. The models were fantastic to work with. I’m sure we all got some great shots. You made us feel welcome and it’s so good to be in a community of photographers that care about each others’ work and life. I worked on a selection of photos from Tuesday and posted them on my web gallery. My friends are raving about them, and they know it’s from East Meets West. I’ll post more soon. I’m enjoying the PDN Photo Plus Conference too and am getting a lot of nuggets from that. I’ll have to write up a more in depth review of the day and also send you guys some photos. I’m going to be so busy catching up with life, but this is what I live for too, even though I have a full time job. Things are starting to happen and your seminar was a catalyst to getting even more inspired and into photography.

Love this stuff. Vitaya ~
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It was so awesome taking the workshop with you. We really wanted to thank you for all the help and advice you have given us. And we can’t wait to put it all into action and figure all this out. It has been a great and unbelievable first year for us and we are so excited for the future. We just hope we can make it and figure out marketing and etc/finding clients. We are so grateful for photographers like you who have helped us along the way and we continue to be so inspired. You are an amazing photographer and so hardworking/driven and amazingly smart and slick when it comes to all this. If you don’t mind, we would love to take you out for lunch some time when you aren’t so busy! We can tell you the name of some great frenchie breeders!

Thank you so much!!! Caroline + Dan
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Wow, it was an absolute blast meeting everyone at Gene & Jose’s amazing workshop! Gene, you and Jose kicked ass and I left totally inspired! So now I’d love to compile a list with everyone’s names, their location, email address, website and blog link. Please email me back this information over the weekend if you’re interested and I’ll send an email out to everyone with the completed list sometime at the end of next week. Totally cool if you’re not interested and want to crawl back into your well, to finish sewing that skin coat you’ve been working on all year. I just figure this would be another way we can all keep in touch, check out each other’s work and bounce ideas back and forth - yes, even with “Gustavo from Columbia.” lol I consider you guys family so if there’s anything I can do to help any of you out, don’t ever hesitate to ask…. well as long as it’s not babysitting. See you all at WPPI next year! Cheers! ~Tom

In America and in life we can do anything we set our minds to. I have tears in my eyes as I write this post. It was not long ago where my grandparents were interned because there were Japanese, right here in America. I miss them very much and I wish I could have shared this victory with them. Change has come!!! America IS a place where all things are possible.

It inspires me to see a man of color elected the 44th president of the United States. It makes me dream and gives me hope of the impossible, and take more challenges to become the best that I can be. I have and always will approach life with open arms.

I thought I would share this envelope with you. It held my grandparent’s marriage license. Take a look at where it’s from, sad. I hope that this will never happen again in in America. President Obama is the voice of America and I believe he will take us to the promise land.

Happy Halloween everyone. I hope you all had some time off to party and dress up. I didn’t get a chance to dress up this year. But, guess who did? The very popular pug in the wedding industry wanted to be a Bumble bee this year. It’s Ann’s nickname for him around the studio. Check out these funny pictures we took outside of Ann’s new loft.