Marie Claire China was kind enough to get in touch with me and name Gene Higa Photography as 1 of 5 of the Top photographers. WOW! I have been internationally published before but this was really humbling. Marie Claire-China and I have been in talks for several months now and it’s nice to see it in print. Here are a couple of shots my buddy Jim Garner sent over. I have the privilege of being published with close friends Jose Villa, Jim Garner, Cliff Mautner and Karen Wise.

We have a winner!!! Yay!!! Thanks to the over 4700 + people who participated in our little contest. We appreciate all of the retweets, the comments made and especially your votes. All of the videos were either fun, artistic or very creative. We actually took a long time watching the videos and videos over and over again to pick our favorites. From there the public decided. Thanks to the many people who took the time to watch the videos and cast their votes to pick the winner.

Below is the poll. I screen grabbed it at 5:00 pst from my iphone, cause I was at the airport picking up the Bui bothers.

Below is the winning video. CONGRATULATIONS! See you in Tuscany.

First of all, Thanks so much for all of the 45 entries!!! All of them so amazing. They made me laugh, cry, sing dance and one even scared me. yikes! I even want to learn to juggle, rap, wrap present better, and look both ways before crossing the street. Be careful! Awe, the kids, you gotta love the kids. But, most of all it was a fun little project to do. Don’t you agree? People from all over the world entered, South Africa, Sweden, UK, Brazil, Costa Rica, and across the US. Thanks for sharing 12 seconds of your life with us and most of all your time and talent to be creative and tell us why you want to come to Italy.

Honestly, Jose and I would love to take all of you with us. What a fun and crazy group this would be. It was a extremely hard decision to make, and it took all morning for me to do. But, here are the top 3 + 1 videos in particular order. The public will decide the winner of the scholarship. If you are in the top 3 + 1, we encourage you to get your friends to vote, twitter and facebook it. The winner will be announced on Friday, June 12 at 5:00 p.m. PST.

All votes must be cast here in the comments section. We ask that they simply post the videos name and why they think it’s the winning video.

Good luck to all of the top 3+1.

Thanks for all of the interest for the Italy workshop with us in Tuscany, Italy. We thought about how we could make this fun for you, us and even people who won’t be applying.

Here are the details:
The scholarship will cover a 3 days wedding photography workshop in Tuscany with Gene Higa and Jose Villa. Flights to and from the U.S., rooms at the Villa and any miscellaneous fees are not included. These items will be covered by the winner. The workshop value of $1950 cannot be transferred, or redeemed for cash.

If the winner is a husband and wife team only 1 of the photographers may take advantage of the winning scholarship seat, any and all other attendees will have to pay the $1950 workshop fee. The rate per night per person is $85 a night at the Villa.

This is all you have to do:
No boring essays, no applications for this scholarship. So how do you apply? Simple. A Italy Workshop account has been set up on 12 Seconds.tv. Simply log on to the 12second.tv website and record your video, it takes 12 seconds..

http://12seconds.tv/

Username: italyworkshop
Password: wedding

So how creative can photographers be in 12 seconds? Anything goes. We want to laugh, so sing, dance, and just have fun with this. Be you and tell us why you deserve to go to Italy. Be funny, creative and most of all, WOW us.

After you have recorded your video. Post a reply link on twitter to 3 different accounts  @italyworkshop, @josevilla and @genehiga.

Deadlines: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 midnight PST. From there we will select 3 of the best videos. They will be linked on our blogs the following morning (June 11th). From there the public will decide the winner of the scholarship. If you are in the top 3, we encourage you to get your friends to vote, twitter and facebook it. The winner will be announced on Friday, June 12 at 12:00 p.m. PST.

Good luck and see you in Tuscany!

Gene and Jose

Robert Evans and Curt Appanovich the creators of photography mentor were in San Francisco last week, for the Photo-fusion Tour. Some of you may know of Robert Evans, he shot Tom Cruise + Katie Holmes and Brad Pitt’s first wedding to Jennifer Aniston a couple of years back. Amazing! They were kind enough to ask me to do a wedding model photoshoot. Photography Mentor is a educational website for the up and coming or seasoned wedding photographer. Photography Mentor is one of the best social medias out there for wedding photographers in San San Francisco and abroad.

Jaime Dollaga is THE amazing San Francisco based model who was happy to be my bride for the day. Armando Sarabia got her do up and glammed up her make up. All of her amazing handmade jewelery was from Lindsie Jones of Haute Bride and Jose gave me the dress. Thanks everyone for the hook up.

Armando Sarabia
get your DO up!
415.425.8259
www.getyourdoup.com

Lindsie Jones
Haute Bride
415.923.5900
www.hautebride.com

Here are some of the shots from the shoot. Stay tuned for some behind the scenes shots from Candice and Gustavo. The video will be posted on Photography Mentor.

enjoy!

The blog is back and I am really excited about this first post. I’m thrilled to be doing a workshop with some of my favorite east coast photo-friends, Justin and Mary Marantz.

The details:

Date: July 22nd
Location: New Haven, CT (and surrounding areas)
Investment: $700 (includes lunch)

This will be an all day workshop! We’ll start in the morning with some seminars, break for lunch, do a killer on location shoot with our models (that should make for some pretty amazing portfolio pieces) and then come back to show you all of our post processing magic.

Some of the topics to be covered during the day are:

Who are you? The core of your business
What do you want? Defining your path to success.
Where do you want to go? Setting goals
What is important to you? Striking a balance
The magic of thinking Big
The power of Momentum
Finding and creating a niche market
Be a Lovemark: the future beyond brands
Creating Loyalty Beyond Reason: The customer experience from start to finish
Creating value
Developing a signature style
Coming out of non-exsistance - getting your name out there
The Triangle Offense of Marketing: Clients, Vendors, Other Photographers
Getting published and profiled
Destinations weddings
Giving value first and Creating rich relationships
and so much more…

I feel in Love with Conneticut about 4 years ago and have been fortunate enough to shoot some weddings out there. I am thrilled to be returning, hanging with friends and meeting some new ones. So I would LOVE it if you guys could be there too!! Plus, I am definitely hitting up Pepe’s Pizza. My buddy Harvey Goldstien introduced me to Pepe’s. Ever since, I have compared every slice to it. Hands down Pepe’s is the best pizza in the nation. IMHO.

The workshop will be launching at 9am (EST) on Monday morning and seating is VERY limited. To keep the group intimate and be able to give personal attention to every attendee, we will only be accepting the first 20 people who sign up. So make sure to set those iPhone alarms, so you don’t miss out!  Feel free to email me if you have any questions at gene@genehiga.com.