Last Monday, I had the extreme pleasure of guest speaking at the first-ever JNP Workshop in Santa Ana, California! Jeffrey is one of my absolute best friends in both life and this crazy photography industry. We met 3 years ago at a workshop and have since developed a beautiful relationship! Jeffrey and I are complete opposites in almost everything, but we are constantly challenging and encouraging each other to dream bigger. We often talk about that workshop and how the best thing we took away was not necessarily the content but the lasting relationships and friendships with other photographers. When Jeffrey approached me about speaking at his workshop, I was absolutely on board! Our vision was to simply inspire the students to live their dreams and spread the love! (I know, it sounds totally hippie...) The workshop came together beautifully with an amazing table scape from the ladies at Utterly Engaged and Treasured Petal (sneak peek below...the rest of the beautiful images will be in an upcoming issue of Utterly Engaged E-Zine!)

The workshop was filled to the brim with some intense information! Seriously, we covered everything from Branding to Building your Personal Style to Pricing to Getting Your Dream Clients! It was a fun filled day of learning, but I think what the students appreciated most was the hands-on-shooting time we had with lots of new equipment that they might not have had the opportunity to use before! I enjoyed this time the best, because I was able to get out of the classroom and actually teach the students how to direct and shoot!

Putting on a workshop is definitely not easy. There is a ton a prep work that goes into a day like this and both Jeffrey and I learned along the way. However, it is absolutely worth it! I had SO much fun being a part of this day and it really solidified my passion for giving back to my industry! It also proved that I am a leader - and a strong one at that. There will be many more workshops in the future, that is for damn sure. Boo Ya!