I don’t know how it happens, but it does. I get to work with really cool brands, even though I don’t think I qualify to associated with them in any way. In Vancouver I often get associated with Revolver Coffee, the coolest coffee shop in town (is that the proper term?), even though I don’t drink coffee. I do like the atmosphere of coffee shops though, and Revolver has cool hats. Last year Juan from Beers and Cameras invited me to come down to San Diego to celebrate their 1 year anniversary meet-up, and I was totally honoured. The first concern was that I don’t drink beer and wondered if that would be a problem. Juan assured me that beer drinking was an option, and that the main reason for the meet-up was to talk about photography and camera gear. That’s my type of crowd. I flew down for the event in San Diego last November and I had a great time. I met many photographers of all backgrounds shooting various types of gear and genres of photography. It was refreshing to meet such a diverse crowd of photo enthusiasts. Again, it was about atmosphere, not beers.
Almost 8 months later I was invited back to San Diego to do another meet-up event, and this time I didn’t hesitate. Not only that, I invited
Mike Padua from
ShootFilmCo to join us, and he accepted the invitation (he flew down from LA). Philip Steblay from
The Darkroom also came down to join us, as did
Adam Ottke from
Fstoppers. We had the usually Thursday night meet-up, a members only Friday night dinner, and Saturday morning workshop with a photowalk. It was a busy 3 days for me, which included shooting 4 YouTube videos. I did get time to explore the streets of San Diego as well, notably North Park and City Heights, both along University Avenue. These quick 4 day trips are busy, exhausting, and exciting. In the middle of it all I lost my voice twice from talking too much (in the mornings I wouldn’t talk for a couple of hours to rest my voice), and I think I got a bit of a tan. I also have an upcoming collaboration with
The Darkroom and
Beers and Cameras next month too. A successful trip to SoCal in my books.
I have more to say about this trip but I’ll end it here. More articles to come, including my review of the
LightPix Labs Q20 flash on my Ricoh GR (all pictures in this article taken with my Ricoh GR). Look for upcoming
YouTube videos, check out
my Instagram feed for pictures, and check out
Beers and Cameras Instagram account for more coverage of the event. Also look out for future projects with everyone mentioned. Thanks for reading and happy shooting!
