Pixiq

I just got back this week from the ImagingUSA convention in San Antonio. January is the start of “convention season” in the photo industry.  Conventions like this to me are a gathering of the clan, the community of photographers. I met old friends and made some new friends. Not hard with 11,000 people there for the convention.

ImagingUSA is put on by Professional Photographers of America (PPA), the oldest and largest photo trade association in the world. PPA can be traced back to 1880 but actually goes back further to the 1840’s with the arrival of the plans for the Daguerreotype camera in the US. Rumor has it that Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse Code, paid for the plans of the Daguerreotype and had them smuggled to New York within 5 weeks of it’s patent filing in France. Abraham Bogardus (1822 – 1908) one of the first Daguerreotype photographers in the US was one of the founders of the first photo association.

That photographer’s association did well, based in Chicago, until the Great Chicago fire of 1874 disrupted its convention and trade show. Yup, they had photo trade shows even back then.  Reformed in 1880 with a convention of about 280 photographers we now travel to San Antonio and today’s descendant convention with 11,000 attendees. Business classes, Photoshop lectures, lighting demos, new products displayed, and a huge hall just filled to the brim with photo toys. What fun!

How do I know so much about PPA and its history? Well, I’m proud to have served on its board of directors for more than a decade and served as PPA President a few years ago.

Back to the convention itself.  Legendary photographer Harry Benson gave a fantastic talk and was later wandering around the trade show floor. Adobe’s own Julieanne Kost was also there teaching. So many great instructors, so many photographers. Seeing it says a lot more than trying to write about it.  So in a few days or so, depending how I do with Premier Pro, I’ll finish cutting a video and show y'all what I saw.