San Antonio, TX

Here I am in San Antonio. FREEZING my butt off. Rain and ice have been the norm since I arrived. I am here for the Imaging USA convention. The last 2 days have been full of great speakers and a lot of schmoozing with vendors who might want to sponsor part of my speaking tour. San Antonio has a great downtown area with the Riverwalk. You can get on the riverwalk and go just about anywhere downtown that you want to go. It has great shops and restaurants. (See the photo of my piece of cake) Lord knows I did not NEED any cake but when I am out of town the one thing I spurge on is great restaurants. I will post some photos later.
Erin (My old assistant from the Fayetteville days) is here with her husband Casey and we are about to go to lunch. (See photo of Erin and I in the freezing rain) other than Erin and Casey I have not seen any other photographers that I know here. I think must of them are waiting until March when an even larger convention will be in Las Vegas. The photographers that I have met here that are my age seemed to have an attitude of panic about all of the young photographers attending this year.
Erin and Casey are in a different hotel than I so it is a bit lonely here. I wish someone very cool was here with me so we could cause some trouble.
Three years ago on Biloxi MS, there were 3000 photographers that attended this event. Last year in Austin TX they had 7000. This year over 10,000 photographers have joined the organization and come to the convention. Most of these new photographers do not have a clue. But they came here to get one. And this is the place to get it. The statistics show that 80 % of them will be out of business in 3 years. Of the 20 % that survive, 80% of those will be out of business in 7 years.
This May I will have been in business 27 years. My new goal is to help some of these young photographers. I am looking for a few good ones with talent and the right attitude to take under my wing and teach for free. All the rest I will try to sell my advice to.