Amber's Excellent Adventure!

Wednesday morning, I hopped on a plane from Nashville, TN to New York City for PhotoPlus Expo . I had spent about 4 hours in the city previously, and that was with my family entourage in tow. This time, I went alone, and was planning to stay til Friday afternoon.

My dear friend Shyla flew in from LA, and we bummed a room at our new friend Eric's place!

I need to throw a little praise at my new buddy Eric... :e: is one of the coolest people I have ever had the privilege of meeting. He's considerate and giving, ridiculously talented, and quite un-ugly! And ladies... he's single, feel free to pop over to his blog and leave him some love!

So without further ado, here are a few images from my point and shoot!

The sign that greeted us at the :e: pad...




We got a little dressed up, and headed for a fun pre-expo party. Eric said we should try our serious yet sexy faces, and Shyla just couldn't hold hers! Love it!



Jason Groupp hosted a fun party at his super cool studio. It was so exciting to finally meet him, somehow we've always missed each other in the past!

I swiped this fun image from his blog! I have no idea who about half of these people are :) It was great to see Luke Walker for just a bit, I've missed him greatly!



I, of course, took no pictures of the cool studio or crazy crowd.. but I do have a couple self portraits of the fun people I hung out in the hallway with ;)

The amazing Joy Moody and the wonderful Sophia.



Andrew and Rachel, half of the amazing Lacour quartet... Mark left before we took this photo, and sadly, Erin didn't make it to New York at all.



We stopped at a fun little burger joint for much needed sustenance after the party was over.



The next morning, we woke up bright and early and headed in to the trade show. Eric grabbed this shot of Shyla and I on the subway. It was such an odd experience. I know many people love the rush rush feeling of the city, but for a small-town girl like myself, I think I felt my blood pressure rise every time I descended into the heart of the city!



At the Javits Center , I loved the ceiling there.



Had a fun breakfast with Rita Weibner. We had a great time talking about our upcoming schedules and our ever challenging lives as photographer moms. I always love getting to chat with Rita, and am glad we managed to carve out a bit of time for ourselves!



The rest of the day was spent hanging out at the trade show, and then going out to dinner with the amazing, newly married, Marantz's. Sadly, I took no pictures... but let me tell you that we had a blast. Thanks to Pictage for dinner!



After dinner, I met back up with Shyla and Eric, and we traversed the city to see Times Square at night! What an insane sight!



This makes me laugh so hard... Eric though we should pretend like we were blinded by the lights...



Friday morning, after oversleeping slightly, we hiked and trained back into the city through the misty rain. Shyla and Eric were going to be working the Shootsac booth so they had fun shirts made for themselves.



Because they are super cool people, they also had a shirt made for me... I sported it all day. On the back, it says, "now buy me something cool". I don't know that I have ever had so many strangers speak to me... the shirt was a great conversation piece.



After speaking at the Pictage booth for a bit in the morning, I had the opportunity to go grab lunch with my dear friend David Jay. While we were eating, we were joined by my friends Lauren and Amy ! I was so excited to see these girls. We only got a minute together, as they were working hard at the crazily packed Fong Booth.





Me and Sara France.



Nikon's amaaaaaaazing new camera. Must. Buy. Soon.



My friend Carey and my new friend Roxanne. Roxanne is the owner of Pixel2Canvas . I'm going to be using her for an amazing print I've got coming up... I can't wait to show it to you guys!



The spectacular J of Livebooks.



My flight out of JFK was canceled, and I had a wedding to get back to on Saturday. AFter much scrambling, the brilliant Justin Marantz found me a flight out of Hartford, CT the following morning. I cannot express enough thanks to Justin and Mary. They not only opened their home to me (and entertained me with great stories!), but Justin drug himself out of bed before 4:00 am to drive me to the airport an hour away! All of this while they are still on their honeymoon! I love you guys so much, thank you, thank you, thank you!



Goodness, this blog post was almost as exhausting as the trip itself! Wait til you see the wedding images!