My 2012 is already off to a very fast start. I've already been to New York, London, Paris, Munich... everyones talking about... Pop Musik! Apologies to M and no, I didn't make it to Munich on this trip, but I've already been to the other 3 cities named in the song. If fact, I am writing this post from my hotel suite at the 7 hotel in Paris, the night before I head back to London to catch a long flight back to LAX. It's been an exhausting but fruitful trip so far with a nice mix of business and pleasure.

On January 4th, I headed to the east coast to take part in the 7th annual Mystic Seminars hosted my my friend Walter Van Dusen. It was my first time speaking at the conference and it was great. I am hoping to get invited back next year. There were about 300 photographers in attendance, and I was honored to be included in the line up of speakers with some of my favorite photographers in the industry such as Joe Buissink and Jerry Ghionis. It was also nice to catch up with some old friends as well as meeting some [ b ] Schoolers for the first time. A little shout out to Nate, Noa & Pamela especially.

Right after Mystic, I was off to London to take place in the SWPP conference for the second year in a row. The trip started off a little rough as I caught a cold in Connecticut and suffered from some wicked jet lag (which is so unlike me). I actually overslept for my first speaking engagement after I was awake in plenty of time (shouldn't have laid back down). I blame it on the strong English cough medicine! Thankfully they were able to switch me with another speaker and it all worked out. I was plenty early to each of my next 3 speaking engagements!. The people in the UK were so warm and friendly and I got lots of compliments on my talks. My favorites praises included "Bloody brilliant" and "Magic". I could get used to hearing those kinds of compliments.

Mystic with about 300 people in attendance was kind of like a warm up to SWPP and I look at SWPP (about 3,000 attendees) as a warm up to the WPPI convention (15,000 photographers attend) that takes place in Vegas every year... I speak 1 month from today (Sunday the 19th at 3pm - pre board if you haven't already).

Anyway... my year has already included a lot of networking & sharing with my photographer friends and I look forward to continuing that trend for the rest of 2012. Speaking of which... we started a new series in the [ b ] School and we'll have fresh video content in the classroom every Monday this year... so if you haven't signed up... get on board now before you get left behind.

Here are a couple of shots from my last talk in London:

Last year you may recall that Joe Photo & I trekked down to India for a photo safari after SWPP, but this year I took a few personal days in Paris before coming back and starting my year. I'll post more photos from my trip once I return, but for now enjoy this view of the Eiffel Tour taken from Montmartre.