CT PUG Prom

January 25th marked the One year anniversary of our first PUG meeting in Hartford, CT so we decided to celebrate right back at the same studio where it all began!! Here are a few shots from our "cheesy" PUG prom photobooth.

= Justin =

I am the leader of the Los Angeles Pictage User Group, and I wanted to share some pics from our monthly meeting which was this past Wednesday. The crazy talented Jay Lawrence Goldman was both the Studio Spotlight and the speaker. His presentation "To Shoot or Die in LA" drew an enormous crowd despite the fact that it was pouring rain.

I just LOVE Jay's studio space:



He's got these cute little birds that live there!



Here's me making Jay's introduction:



Here's Jay doing his thing. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, I highly recommend it. He's not only incredibly informative, he's so funny!

J Sandifer ROCKED the CT PUG!!

J Sandifer was so awesome to come down from Maine and speak to our PUG a couple weeks back (can't believe we're just getting around to posting about this now) and he ROCKED the house!! We had by far our largest turnout yet- 54 PHOTOGRAPHERS!- and everyone was so blown away by J. He talked all about how to get the most out of our websites and then ended the night by giving away one FREE website and a $500 gift certificate for another one!

We met J this past May at the Chicago PartnerCon and he has quickly become one of our absolute favorite people in the industry. You will not find a more genuine, kind, generous heart around. He's just one of those people you instantly fall in love with and hope to know for a very loooong time. We love you J!!!

Here are some fun pics of the night's festivities stolen from the adorable Joy Moody's blog...who also was the big winner of the night!



us, Joy, and J

Miami Pug, Christmas (12-16)

Better late then never.

The Miami Pug Holiday Party was held at our home. As you can see, we are definitely a family affair down here. Lot's of children, lot's of food, and lot's of laughs.

Thank you everyone for coming. I know not everyone is in the photograph, but a few had to leave early, sorry we missed you.

My wife Alison wants to thank everyone also for bringing so much food, we had left overs for days. Our son Carson had so many kids to play with, he was thrilled. See you next year, or at WPPI too.

Raleigh NC PUG Group

We have been averaging about 10 people at each of our PUG meeting and at just 5 months old, I was pretty happy. This past week we met at a different time of the month because New Years Day fell during our regular meeting time. Justin & Mary Marantz came out to talk to our group and I advertised the meeting in advance through email, we had a SUPER turnout. I believe there were 21 of use total (OUR BIGGEST PUG GROUP YET!). One guy said he had no idea what he walked into or what PUG meant and at the end of the meeting he told me how much fun he had and that he would be back.

I feel like we are finally beginning to establish good relationships with one another in the group and just this week we started up a nice email dialogue with our opinions on what someone in the group was dealing with. I am also working to get some things lined up in advance because I find we have better attendance when we advertise what we will be discussing in advance. In Feb we will be given a demonstration of Lightroom by Elizabeth, who is a PUG group member and in March we will have a CPA come out and chat about taxes and what we are doing right or wrong. I am excited about the relationships we are building and our growth over the last 5 months.

We have several people driving in from 1-2 hours away to be with us.

Justin and Mary did an awesome job and I continue to hear how much they inspired everyone in the room. Here are a few shots I grabbed at the meeting, Justin actually asked our waiter Bo to grab the group shot. A neat little note: Bo has been our waiter has served us since we started and he even came in on his night off to wait on us this week... We love him!

SB UGLY SWEATER HOLIDAY PARTY!

IT'S BETTER LATE THEN NEVER! Sorry I'm just now posting about our holiday party. I finally have some down time after the holidays.

We had a great night at DJ's amazing ocean view home. We usually only have 5-8 people at each PUG, but I knew if we had it at DJ's house, we'd have a great turnout. I think throughout the night, we probably had close to 40 people there. We had great food, drinks and some even enjoyed the hot tub overlooking the ocean!

We set up a "photobooth" and got some fun shots of everyone.

Unfortunately most of the people thought they were too cool for the "Ugly Sweater" theme, so myself and a couple others were the only ones dressed like dorks! :)

A big thanks to Pictage for driving all the way up here to join us for our party!!!

Philly January PUG

Well we started off with a nice little group of 6 people

I asked the group what they wanted from our meetings and if they had ideas for topics

An insight from a friend who never has attended a meeting said that he felt like the invitations needed to really express community and the building of a strong network and the offering of a strong network

It is good to hear from others because I thought I had expressed the goals of the monthly meetings in the evite but now know that others are not feeling it. Does anyone have suggestions for expressing the strength and opportunities we will have if we build a strong community? I think the people who attend on a regular basis feel this but we need to do more to attract more.

On another note:

some ideas our group came up with:

- have a panel discussion with other people in our industry- videographers, florsits, planners, caterers
-do a lighting demo
-exchanging "press packets", what we send and give to clients who meet with us
-have someone do demos on retouching - skin retouching, thinning people out, removing objects etc
-posing demo- ways to work with heavier clients or awkward clients to get the most out of their portrait
-accountant to come in and talk about tax stuff
-pricing seminar
-model shoot, workshop
-SEO, blog and website design


anyone have good ideas for topics?