Last week, Table4 went to Lost Wages, NV to attend a very important international business trip.  (Try to focus on our ties).

Just kidding. We were in Vegas to spend a week among other industry leaders and wedding photography vendors at WPPI.  WPPI is an annual convention and trade show held for wedding photography professionals to help us network, inspire, be inspired, learn, and enjoy a week of being around others in the industry.  We took the trip with some of our good friends, Cesar and Tanya Perez (who also took the above photo) of Perez Weddings.  There were close to 10,000 attendees this year and I’m proud to say that Andrew and I met 9 new people.  Just kidding.  We met like 22 new people. That’s still sad.  BUT, more importantly, it was a week for Table4 to take a business retreat, refresh some ideas for the future, and add more value for our clients!  (To all our new friends, HI!)

I won’t lie though, out of the 5 days we were there, we got maybe 4-5 hours of sleep a night.  If any of you are on Facebook, some of the more…interesting…photos have probably started to creep up in your feeds.  But, needless to say, we got a ton of great ideas and inspiration to bring our business to the next level.  In fact, one of the things we’ll be implementing soon is a paperless (aka GREEN) booking system so everything will be done online!  This means less paper, less copies, less licking stamps, less mailing back and forth, and more tree saving.  New pricing will be announced soon as well, so if are wanting to book with us, contact us to take advantage of current pricing.

One of the cooler things we did during the week was actually shoot.  The irony of this convention is that there’s a lot of classroom time and trade show time, but not a lot of shooting time.  So we took an afternoon/evening off to go on a Vegas photowalk.  Our friends, Dianna and Aaron came with us as we walked around kind of aimlessly on the strip, snapping whatever we saw.  Here are a few of those images:

That evening, we hit up Thomas Keller’s Bouchon with Esti, Kean, Sarah, and Serena for some ridiculous indulgence.  I ordered the pork belly (pure fat) and steak frites (aka an order of french fries with a side of steak) and Andrew got beef rillettes and skirt steak.  The food was delicious and the company was great!  Thanks to Pete and Preston for the suggestions!

The next morning, we got up at 5am with Cesar, Serena, Dianna, and two of our newest friends, Austin and Jean, for a shoot at the infamous Red Rock Canyon.  Since Austin and Jean were married like a week before WPPI, they still had her dress in the car and Austin brought a suit to be our models.  But they told us it was to see if they could get a free room upgrade if they showed up with dress in tow.

Here’s Serena after hibernating in her cave all winter.

And Cesar with his brand new lens and day old bowtie.

This last image is courtesy of Serena Grace….and Act Restoring Mouthwash.

Overall, it was an incredible week of fun, food, and new/old friends.  We’re so glad we got to meet new people and hang out with other industry leaders.  We’re also stoked to be implementing a bunch of new “things” for Table4 that will undoubtedly make this job more fun (hard to do) and much better for our clients!

I’ve got a fever.  And the only cure.  Is more dresses.

When Jason and I first started Table4, we realized we were bringing to our clients two distinct backgrounds in photography.  He started off shooting friends and family with a candid and intimate approach, while I started off shooting cars, models, and focusing more on studio work.  Sometimes our ideas clashed, and sometimes we came up with something incredibly original.  One thing was always certain: our clients deserved the best that we could give.  I have to say that this mesh of backgrounds has been an incredible learning experience for both of us as we continue to define our collective style and serve our clients.    This mix definitely benefited our weddings though, introducing two different and skilled perspectives into our client’s wedding stories.  It wasn’t (isn’t) easy, but what good thing is, right?

Over the course of the last year, my background in studio lighting and our wedding work has caught the attention of two up and coming Austin, TX wedding dress designers, Thao Nguyen and Beth Elis.  This is a collection of new dresses that we shot for their respective catalogs.  If there are any other dress designers (or wedding vendors) out there who would like some commercial style photographs for their website, marketing, or portfolios, please don’t hesitate to contact us through the contact link above!  Enjoy!

As the wedding season is about to kick off, catch us on the road while we travel!  Over the next 3 months, we’ll be traveling to Vegas, Houston (multiple times), Cancun, and Playa del Carmen!  We’re suuuupper excited to shoot three out of state weddings this year and can’t wait to show off some of the exotic locations we’ll be traveling to.  Feel free to hit us up on twitter (jasonhuang // chaninator) or email if you wanna grab a meal/drink with either of us!

So, take this post as just a post by a really excited owner of a new toy.  Canon recently released their newest camera, the 5DMkII.  This a beautiful peice of machinery which not only produces 21mp image files, but can record 1080p HD video as well. So, this past Saturday, I took the new toy out for a test drive with Christy and Stephen’s engagement shoot in Fort Worth.  Stephen and I have known each other since middle school, and were in the same band for about 8 years (don’t ask, we weren’t that great…well, until I left…)  He’s a ridiculously talented guitarist, but recently hung up his guitars to go to med school.  Christy…Christy could be a Korean popstar.

First of all, Andrew and I aren’t videographers, nor do we want to be.  We’re not here to replace wedding videographers.  But, we are now able to provide our clients something new and unique with a quality and feel that matches our still photographs.  Obviously, we haven’t played around with this enough to add anything significant to our packages or to what we’re already providing our clients.  However, there are now more possibilities and we’ll be taking the next few months to ‘experiment’ with our existing and future clients; something we can ALL be excited about!  As a note, we won’t be experimenting with video at our weddings any time soon, so keep those videographers if you’ve hired them already!  If you haven’t hired one yet, go check out our buddy, Austin Walton.  We worked alongside him for this shoot and will hopefully be doing more work together soon. 

So, this “slideshow” is composed of a short video (shot on my camera) at the beginning followed by some stills from their session.  The video is a realllllly short clip because 1.) We’re not videographers and 2.) We’re not videographers.   But, couldn’t this be a modern and unique Save the Date alternative?  I wish it were a little longer with more video, and I know it just kind of leaves you hanging, but….tough cookies. Anyway, this is just a glimpse of the great possibilities new technology can provide us so enjoy!  Check back every once and a while as we’ll be working on a more ‘deliverable’ product as well as the rest of Christy and Stephen’s engagement session.