My 2023 Trip to Portland
I have had to learn lots of things since picking up my camera and turning it into a career. But none of those things in any way prepared me for owning and operating a business.
So in early 2020, I joined a business education program created especially for photographers and have been a member ever since. It was only just this past October that I got to meet the guide/mentor/educator/coach Sandra Coan and others from my cohort for the first time in Seattle, WA in person!
I got my first email address my first year in college, so the idea of meeting people online was never a thing for me. When I actually met these people after phone calls, texts, group chats and of course zoom calls after all this time I was a little giddy.
My kids would have been horrified if they had been there to see me squeal the first time I met them.
Just a couple of weeks ago, we met again, this time in Portland, as a way to jump start our new year.
We stayed in this hotel formerly used as an elementary school. Its walls are full of chalkboards, old classrooms, detention rooms turned bars. It was such a cool place to stay and work for a few days with people that I have seen on my screen for years. Someone said something about a ghost, (HA! ) but I missed that story.
Since co-workers are not a part of my daily life it is so nice to belong to a group of passionate and professional people who can be kind of like my online coworkers.
It was a great way to start my year.