Bryan Caporicci and JB Sallee...Congrats!

Over the last week or two, there's a lot that's been going on and so often I miss the moments. I know I've got a lot of photographers who I consider good friends and probably never did a blog post like this, but consider it one of my early New Year's resolutions. It's real simple - I just want to slow things down. Instead of always working, I want to stop now and then, look around me and pay attention to what's going on.

I know I'm not alone. There are a whole bunch of you who can identify with the challenges of stepping away from trying to build something every day. We need to be listening instead of talking, reading instead of writing, and looking instead of capturing. 

Well, Bryan Caporicci of SproutingPhotographer.com and Texas photographer, JB Sallee have had an amazing week and I want to share two incredible accomplishments of two very good buddies!

For Bryan it was a stellar moment when Sprouting Photographer was recognized as...

            The only photography podcast featured in “Best of iTunes 2014″ by Apple!

Click on the banner above to read Bryan's complete post about podcasting. There's some great information here and Bryan, as always, writes in a way that you can't help but learn something. 

For me, the recognition is significant for two great reasons. First, Bryan's a knucklehead...that's an expression I picked up years ago and I only use it to describe some very good friends. You have to be a knucklehead these days to survive in business. You have to be creative, take risks and be ready to readjust your vision when things don't always go as planned.

Second, Bryan came to me a few months ago with an idea he and his partner in SproutingPhotographer.com, Rob Nowell, had called Weekend Wisdom. It's a podcast with me as the host and guests who focus exclusively on just one topic and then drill it down. We want to give listeners as much helpful information as we can, typically in just thirty minutes. 

Weekend Wisdom took off and thanks to Bryan and Rob the series now has  8 episodes under it's belt with Don Komarechka, Sandy Puc, Doug Box, Cindy Harter Sims, Joe McNally, Tamara Lackey, Kristen Jensen and MJ Gottlieb and in 2015 we're going to increase the frequency from every other week.

Almost 1500 miles south of Bryan another "knucklehead", JB Sallee had his own banner week...and as sappy as it sounds, I felt like a proud Dad who's kid just hit the winning line drive in the championship game!

JB won the International Loupe Awards in the wedding category and is now in the running for the grand prize. In fact, he had seven images in the top fifty. I love the way he shared the images of all the artists featured in these fifty on his blog post. Just click the link below to read to see all the images.

Just like Bryan, JB and I have some great history. He was the first recipient of WPPI's Hy Sheanin Scholarship. I remember presenting him with the award about ten years ago. He and DeEtte weren't married yet and here we are today with me posting an incredible portrait of JB and his family.  

Just take a look at three of his top images in the Loupe Awards below and you'll understand why I put him in the knucklehead category...he's constantly working to raise the bar on every image he captures. Every image is a "wow" print. He's always experimenting and pushing the edge of the envelope.

Years ago, another good buddy, Scott Bourne, spoke at one of my summer programs and the advice he gave every photographer in the audience was so important to remember...

                             "Capture each image as if it was the last photograph of yours that people will ever see!"

JB never compromises and is always working to exceed every client's expectations!

So to two good friends who this week raised the bar a little higher for our industry...thank you for your inspiration, your support and especially your friendship. I couldn't be more proud to consider you both friends and oh yeah...knuckleheads!