Thanks to all who attend our first Photog Meet up in our new studio space… we had so much fun with everyone! Thanks to Christine Nguyen for this cute shot of me giving the intro at our event… we played a fun “Jules Bianchi Bingo” get-to-know-ya game where participants found out information about who is the man behind the Lensbaby (Craig Strong) and what a Drobo is (Data Robotics storage units).

The idea behind our Photograher’s networking meetings is to encourage friendship and support among colleagues.  Often it can be a lonely road, editing and post-processing images alone in your studio (whether a home studio or a retail space) and knowing that others like you are out there is encouraging.

Our motto of Learn Grow and Share here on Jules Cafe is extended to our real time studio, and we want to help others to succeed in their businesses.  One way to do this is by learning from each other.  If you live in the East Bay of California, we’d love for you to be part of our group.  Please join us on Meet Up… the address is http://www.meetup.com/Jules-CAFE/ or just click here.

Through Meet Up we’ll be able to let you know when the next meetings are, and you can interact with each other as well.  We were thrilled to have a representation of all kinds of photographers.  We are also grateful to our sponsors at Pictage for supporting this group as one of their East Bay Pictage User Groups (PUG).

I want to thank Frederick Van Johnson for taking the time to visit our studio and meet with our group!  He gave a fantastic presentation on the the power of Adobe Lightroom and also a sneak peek into Lightroom 3!  I can’t wait to play with the beta program!

Most people walked away from the Meetup with prizes!  Thanks to our sponsors Tamrac and Kolo, we were able to give away some fun camera bags and photo albums!  Frederick gave away some helpful books on Lightroom thanks to Peach Pit Press and at the end of the night gave away FIVE free copies of Lightroom!

You can see some networking happening here, and unfortunately I didn’t have a camera with me, so in the words of Chase Jarvis, “the best camera is the one you have with you,”  I attempted to get some shots with my iphone.  Ah well, you get the idea.  We had a blast, and I look forward to hosting the next one either in early December or mid-January.  Stay tuned for dates!  If you are interested in learning more, or finding a helpful workshop you can check out Tea for Two with our own lovely Jules Bianchi.