april PUG meeting

We held our monthly Pictage User Group meeting on Tuesday night. Corey McNabb was our studio spotlight and he did a presentation of his work and talked about his business. Corey has been named one of the top 100 photographers in the country and is a recent first place and multi-award winner at WPJA (Wedding Photojournalist Association). He also recently studied with Mike Colon in Newport Beach, CA and is a member of the Grace Ormonde 5-Star Directory. Several of Corey's friends came to show their support and two of his brides and his wife joined us at Carraba's for dinner. Then, a few of us went to Corey's studio until the wee hours of the morning and he showed us how to use Lightroom. We have been teasing Corey that he is on every photographer's blog that attended the big WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) conference in Las Vegas. Michael gave him the new name McBlogStar. Corey had over 600 hits to his blog and most of them came from other photographer's blogs linked to his.

Tara, Jill, Corey and his wife Jill













Corey with former brides Laura Tolle and Tara Jordan













Regina and Dana













Michael, Corey Cagle and her husband, Billy













Laura and Troy Tolle, with Tony McCune of Digital Chalk, Tara, and Jill Schwarzkopf.

Officially a PUG - no longer "Puppy" group

I got exciting news from Pictage! Our "Puppy PUG" has been officially moved up to a full PUG. We are the first of the groups that they started this winter to move up. This means we will be a target for Pictage speakers and have a $100 credit to raffle at each meeting.

Thank you all so much for attending the meetings and making us the first group to move up!

If anyone has topics they want to discuss, please let me know. I also need volunteers for studio spotlights.

March PUG meeting - guest speakers Nathan and Amber Holritz

For the March meeting, we had 17 photographers get together and guest speakers Nathan and Amber Holritz came from Chattanooga. Nathan and Amber are amazing photographers and great speakers. Nathan is so super organized and has transformed their business into a paperless office. He spoke a lot on the concepts from the book "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. Warren Sanders won a free copy! Amber seriously rocks on the baby portraits! She is definitely one of the best in the business.

The management tool that Nathan has designed is called Photographers's Office. Right now, it is an online only but will soon be relaunched as a stand alone application.

website: www.photographersoffice.com

blog: www.photographersoffice.net

Here are some of the links that Nathan referred to:

SyncMyCal - synchronizes iCal, Google and Outlook calendars.

SimulScribe - service takes voicemails and converts them to emails

GotVMail - virtual phone system, makes small businesses sound big, also sends voicemails to email

A lot of the group went to dinner together at Carraba's after the meeting and then a few of us went to play pool. We all want to say a big "THANK YOU" to the Holritz for their time and generosity. Please check out the amazing photos on their blog, too!

Please note: All of these photos are from a point and shoot camera!

Corey McNabb, Corey's office manager, Jeremy Russell and Christopher Record

Jason Tench and Dana Andreasson

Terry Hopkins, Lisa and Warren from Blue Moon Portraits with Nathan.

Jason Tench and Regina Holder

Honour Hiers and associate Aimie Cook, with Honour's baby and Corey McNabb

Corey Cagle, Jason, Christopher, Corey, Nathan and Terry

Michael Juiliano and wife, Sue

Dana Andreasson and Brady Linkous
Regina and Amber

Corey Cagle, Nathan, Amber, Corey McNabb and Regina!

PUG meeting dates

Please mark your calendars:

April 10
May 15 (postponed a week due to Chicago PartnerCon)
June 12
July 10
August 14
September 18 (postponed a week due to LA PartnerCon)
October 9
November 13
December 11

Pictage creates Asheville PUG

I am happy to announce that I have been asked to host a Pictage User Group (PUG) for Asheville area photographers. Our meetings will be held on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at the Courtyard by Marriott off Tunnel Road. Meetings will be from 6:00 p.m. to 8 p.m. Since it is next door to Carraba's, I'm sure we can do some dinner after some of the meetings. A special "Thank You" to Michael Juiliano's wife, Sue, who is the sales manager at the Courtyard for helping us with our meeting space.

I look forward to meeting everyone!