game changers | my new york adventure!


When it comes to Trevor Dayley, I've learned that he means what he says. So when he created the Game Changers workshop, he designed it so that it will flip your entire business on its head.

Over two FULL days (I can't stress the full part enough, we started at 9am, ended at 2am, with a 20 minute lunch break and maybe two if not one 5 minute breaks in between), Trevor basically takes your business, turns it on its side, stares hard at it, figuring out what's working and what's not, and leaves you with ways to speed up the whole process, while making it better at the same time.

It changes everything.

It makes you look back on a way of shooting or a part of your workflow and think "what on earth could I have been thinking..."

This past week has been very WPPI-esque for me. A combination of fear, excitement, star-struckedness (so not a word), and the whole "soak it in now, sleep later" philosophy. Trevor laughed at me when I told him I normally get 9-10 hours of sleep a night, because we were literally learning and practicing and talking around the clock. 

So let me just back up a little bit, and share some photos (both real camera and instagram photos) from my trip :)

It started out with a gorgeous flight to the Toronto Island airport, and a quick and painless connection to Newark. 


The flight into Newark was the first time I had ever seen the NYC skyline, and apparently I cry when I see new places from planes, because it happened exactly the same way when I saw Vegas this February. I wasn't sure at the time if they were nervous tears in preparation for WPPI, but now I guess the whole happy tears on a plane thing is just my default. 

From the airport, I took a bus right into the city, which would drop me about 3 blocks from Times Square. The plan was that I'd get into the city and have a couple hours to kill before Trevor picked me up for the workshop. Yeah, that's right....the guy I so desperately wanted to learn from was picking ME up :):)

When I got off the bus, I breathed in my first bit of New York City air, and started walking. And I walked. And walked. And walked.

I carried my duffle bag on one shoulder, my purse on the other, and held my camera with both hands. No map, nowhere really that I had to be, just looking around the city. 

I hit Times Square first, and I have to say... I wasn't really impressed. It looks so much bigger on TV, which is the opposite of how I felt when I saw the Vegas Strip. But it's something you've just gotta do, right? And...it was the perfect moment to cross off #40 on my list of 101 in 1001:


#40: visit NYC

From there, I picked a street and just walked. Turns out I ended up right at Grand Central Station, with a pitstop in Bryant Park :)




Who ya lookin' at bro?














For some reason, this is my absolute favourite shot that I got in New York :)


I never made it all the way to the Empire State Building, but I did get pretty close and see it peeking through the buildings a little bit!


Even though I wasn't in New York City long, I definitely had at least a little taste of what it's all about. 

I heard the sirens.
I heard a New York accent.  
And I even heard someone whistle for a cab...

One thing I really wanted to do was see Central Park, and I thought...wouldn't that be the perfect place to cross of #65:



#65: have lunch on a park bench and people watch

And of course my NY lunch consisted of a hot dog from a street cart :)


I wandered a little bit more before Trevor and I met up with each other, and started our trek to the workshop location.



I took a cab! It was an $8 ride from Grand Central to Central Park, and I swear my cabbie honked at least 19 times haha.



Originally the workshop was supposed to take place in the city, but one of the attendees owns a gorgeous venue about 2 hours away, near Port Jervis, where not only could the 10 of us spread out a little bit for the workshop part, but where we could all get rooms and basically turn our trip into summer camp. 

So this is where the learning part really started. As soon as we woke up on Monday morning, we grabbed our cameras and started shooting outside with Trevor. Nothing formal, nothing complicated, just shooting each other for some fun headshots and stuff :) 




The lovely Christina :) We bonded so much during the trip, I have no doubt we'll stay great friends. 



And check out these photos I saw on Christina's blog:




At the end of the day (I'm writing this on my iPad on my flight home actually), I don't even know if I can pull together the words to thank Trevor Dayley enough for the experience. He poured his heart and soul out to us, digging deep to give as much information as he could possibly share...it truly was a gift to be able to ask him such candid questions about any aspect of the business.

Trevor...old buddy old pal...if you're reading this, thank you. For everything. For the ride, for the pretzels, for scouring my camera menu to find answers to my questions, for giving this workshop everything you've got. 

I'm hoping to give it at least a week before you hear me say "Oh hey Trevor, I've got a question for ya!" :)


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2 comments :

  1. This was great and that was some fancy ketchup and mustard on that dog :)

    ReplyDelete

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