I woke up this morning with a big joyful sigh—it’s already WPPI Day 4. Last night I went to the Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE show in the Mirage, and it was just the surreal, magical, dreamlike experience I needed to surrender into the delirium of not enough sleep and way more stimulation than I’m used to. The communal experience of theater is cathartic and integrating on a deep level. It helped me process all the excitement and emotion of WPPI. The artistry of the performance, including the dancing, acrobatics, costumes, and lighting left me gobsmacked.

Right after, we ran into Kristina Wikle, who I’ve had the pleasure of reporting on for Rangefinder and of working on her course in The Portrait Masters Store, “Photographing Love”— not LOVE, as in the show, but love, as in couples in love! She had just come from Mystere—the other Cirque show in the Mirage and looked just as blissed out as I felt.

Even though my body clock wanted to get up on Eastern time, I over-rode that impulse and managed to catch a couple more hours of sleep, which is helping me tremendously today. Then, I packed my bags and laid out my outfit changes for today—Totally Rad 80s Party tonight, anyone? It’s a great way to wrap up WPPI Day 4.

WPPI Day 4: The Show Floor Shuffle

It was time to hustle on down to the Show Floor. I caught the end of the new WPPI podcast hosted by Elena S Blair, and was in time to hear Guile Elias from Acrylic Press share an amazing promotion they are running of 45% off all their listed prices for the next 2 weeks. All you have to do to get that deal is use the promo code: WOW45. Wow, indeed! What a sale!

My dear friend who I worked side by side with at The Portrait Masters Conference, Angela Anderson, came on stage with Elena next. Angela shoots boudoir in a small town in Arizona and you can find her on Instagram at @angelaandersonportrait. Elena asked her about her favorite part of WPPI. Without hesitation, Angela said, “Networking. Getting to meet people. Strengthening the relationships you already have. Connecting with the vendors and seeing the people behind the products you are working with.”  I couldn’t agree more!

The Fujifilm Cloud Stage

I stopped by the Rangefinder Rising Stars of Wedding Photography exhibit to soak in some more beautiful love imagery in the wedding photos before heading over to the Fujifilm Cloud Stage. I keep hearing about their new C2C technology, and I wanted to understand what all the buzz is about.

Fortunately, at the Fujifilm booth, I got to chat with both Iyanna Mackins, Assistant Brand Manager and Victor Ha, Vice President of Electronic Imaging and Optical Devices, and they helped me understand how this new technology works and just how useful and cool it is.

In a nutshell, Fuji’s latest cameras have a technology that communicates directly with the cloud hosted by frame.io. It uses Imagen software to both deliver your original image (and video footage) and an AI-edited version of that image or video, and it also keeps a log of what the AI did to improve that image. So, not only do you immediately have a back up of your footage on the cloud and save yourself all the time it takes to make that data transfer later, but you also have an improved image ready to go.

To add another layer of awesome to this, they have partnered with SmugMug, Skylum, and Adobe. So, after your image is delivered and saved on frame.io in a folder named with the date of the image, Imagen delivers it to a SmugMug gallery that is equipped with a purchase button. This is a potential goldmine for Wedding and Event photographers because it only takes a few seconds from when they take an image to when they can sell it, potentially to the subject of the image.

Integration with Frame.io

Skylum’s ClearCut Pro also integrates with frame.io, and as the image uploads, Skylum automatically removes backgrounds from around the subject of the image. When you’re ready to work with those images, you already will have both the original image and an image with the subject on a white, transparent background. And because Adobe is also integrated with frame.io, when you are ready to do more with those images, you can start editing immediately, dropping that image into whatever background you want. Or you can simply send the image with the background removed to your client, for example, a real estate agent, who can now place that image anywhere in their marketing with ease.

You can also work collaboratively using frame.io, so you no longer need to coordinate with your retoucher about getting your images to them. Just let them know when the shoot is. They can even begin retouching while you are still shooting.

And if you are working in a remote location, you are likely to still be able to use it in the moment because the system uses satellites for a broader range of connectivity.

It is no exaggeration to say this technology completely revolutionizes workflow for photographers and videographers. It’s already being used for sports broadcasts, and they are reporting that it has exponentially improved their viewer engagement because they are able to post to social media and interact with viewers at lightening speed.

Thursday , March 9

If you have questions about any part of this process, be sure to stop by these vendors to chat on the Show Room floor tomorrow (Thursday, March 9), and you can watch demos in presentations in the Fujifilm Cloud Theater as well. Here’s when they are happening:

10:30 a.m. – 11 a.m. –  Frame.io 

11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Imagen: Imagine the Future of Your Wedding Business

12:15 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Smug Mug

2:15 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. – Skylum

After having my mind blown by learning about this new technology, it was time to take a break, have some lunch, and catch a little down time before diving back in on the second half of my last day at WPPI 2023.