A week home from Ruidoso and the sensory overload is finally starting to wear off enough to give a basic update. It’s hard to know where to start, so maybe I’ll start at the end and work my way backwards. Here is an except from an email we received from Todd, our fearless leader, a few days ago:

I’m in San Angelo making my way back to Austin, and had a bit of time to reflect on the week. Thanks to all of you for signing up to go to uncharted places based only on my wild promises of coolness. This couldn’t have been possible without your willingness to come along and create the experience.

That were many great fun and poignant moments along the way, and I’m already going through them in my mind, so just wanted to thank you all again for being a part of the workshop. I’m grateful. Ditto to Mark, Duane and Nick. Thanks for the missed meals and sleep.

Those brief sentences sum up the trip so much better than I ever could. We had no idea what the days would bring other than we had our cameras and Todd said it was going to be COOL. And it was. It was very, very cool. There were 7 students and 4 instructors, and I can’t imagine there will ever be a group like this again. I don’t know if it was because we were friends first, or if because we were the inaugural group, but the dynamic was amazing. The 7 students all stayed in one house, but we never felt like we were invading each others’ space (except poor Dan who was sleeping in the living room, we invaded his space every waking minute). Also, had we not stayed together in the same house we would have been deprived of the luxuries that Susan brought with her from Austin like agave nectar, vegan chocolate chip cookies and and fresh, organic coffee from Whole Foods.

One the thing that struck me was how encouraging this group was towards one another. We were genuinely happy if someone got a killer shot, even if it was better than the one we had gotten. More than once I was been disappointed by a picture I had really, really wanted, but was thrilled that someone else had gotten it because at least it wasn’t LOST. Apparently there are are other workshops that can become incredibly competitive, so this sense of comradery wasn’t taken lightly.

I’ll tell more stories as I post pictures over the coming weeks, for now I’ll end with a few things I’m grateful for:

- Building a relationship with eleven of the most wonderful people on the planet (who didn’t get tired of talking about photography, even after five whole days)
- Meditating at White Sands at sunset.
- Learning to appreciate GOOD coffee (and experiencing the other end of the spectrum, trust me)
- Dan driving us all over God’s creation and never once complaining
- Building confidence in street portraits
- Missing a shot I really wanted so I could be sure not to next time
- Feeling humbled, over and over
- GPS Navigation
- Resolving the donkey