Paris Trip, day 1

For those of you who don't know, I was invited to go on a photo workshop in Paris a few months ago by Gina and Steven Silverstein (who run the program). It seemed too good to be true, and it was expensive, so I struggled with the decision to go or not-- I had to put a $500 deposit down by April 15 if I wanted to go, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to afford it, so it was a really stressful bunch of months for me, between trying to find the money, wondering if it would be worth the money, and worrying that it would end up being a scam. With a lot of luck and support from my lovely fellow photogs and art appreciators and family, I was able to go.

A few days before the trip (June 30-July 11), we received our itinerary. The schedule looked really exciting, but it was stated that it was subject to change. They gave reasons and it made sense, but then I got scared that it would be kinda a scam where we get there and end up not doing any of the cool things on the schedule.

WELL GUESS WHAT. They added MORE to the schedule!!!

It was better than I EVER could have imagined. Definitely the most incredible experience of my life. And so I'm going to be blogging about it, with varying amounts of photos. I took very few the first day, so there won't be many in this post, but there will be a bunch in the others :)

SO. here I go.

The first day, July 1. I got there at 8am, and eventually found two other girls who were in the program. We were a little confused about the place that we were supposed to wait for them, and it ended up that they got caught in traffic and were late, so the three of us were half worried that we were in the wrong place and they would leave without us (meaning we'd have to take a cab for about $100) or that it was a scam. Well, all was good, I got in touch with Gina, and it turned out they were just running late, and we eventually got into the taxi van thing. We were all pretty exhausted, especially cause of the time difference.

The day is a bit of a blur to me. We got our roommates, we got settled in, and relaxed for awhile. I remember being so tempted to make a nap, haha. the light was beautiful in my room, so I asked my roommate Jen if I could take her photo.


Then we all went over to the cafe next door for lunch. I got cheese and tomato on a baguette, and it was really yummy :)


I can't really remember what happened next, but I know we went to Profoto after that, and they demonstrated a bunch of their newest lights and batteries, and we got to take the equipment back (we were allowed to use it for the remainder of the trip).

on our way back, I took a few photos of the streets around the hotel. we ended up going down this one quite a lot, it had a ton of shopping and a few places to get baguettes and such :)


When we got back, I was crashing (and so was everyone else), but we had dinner at 8. It was a really yummy pasta restaurant. dinner took a long time, but it was fun, and we got to ask Steven and Gina a lot of questions and all get to know each other a little better.

It was a good first day. The next ones were about 5000 times more awesome though :P

I'm going to get these posts together as quickly as I can, but I have work all day the next two days, then vacation, then work, then Sarah Smiley is coming to visit (!!!), THEN I'll have a couple days to really get stuff done. sorry if it takes me while! :P