I'm finally back from WPPI, woohoo! What an unbelievable week of learning more about the amazing industry of wedding photography and connecting with wonderful people (both new and old friends). My body is about to collapse and my mind is totally drained, but my heart is totally pumped! There's SOOOOO much I want to share with you all, both brides and photographers. Can't WAIT! It's nearly 5AM so I better catch some shut eyes.

I'll post a quick recap of my TTD Workshop in Vegas later this week. Thanks to all that made it out and invested their time and money, I hope you guys enjoyed the day shooting with me and picked up a tip or two :). In the mean time, I'm excited to see one of Melissa and Adam''s engagement session photos place 16th in the engagement portrait portion of the WPJA 2009 Q4 Contest. This site gives me so much inspiration and ideas when it comes to wedding photojournalism, definitely worth checking out if you're a photographer. Okay, I'm off to bed, long day of catch-up tomorrow...

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I woke up this morning to find out that three of my wedding images from 2009 made it into the ISPWP Winter 2009 Contest Winners. The International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers (ISPWP) is an organization that preaches professionalism, quality, and even gives great advice to brides and grooms when they're hiring a wedding photographer.

It's a valuable site to visit (and join!) whether you're a wedding photographer or a bride and groom. I found out about ISPWP late last year and was absolutely blown away by the photography from its members. Thanks guys for picking a few of my images for your Winter contest.

2nd Place: Emotional Impact, from Ivette and Joe's Wedding

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12th Place: Venue or Location, from Karen and Steve's Wedding

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11th Place: Wedding Details, from Kristin and Rafael's Wedding

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Alas my personal/business website is up and running! Special thanks to MokaDesign for designing the site and patiently waiting over 5 months for me to get my act together and launch it :). This site is where I attempt to bring together everything I've worked on the past few years since I started photography. It's still a work in progress, as I plan on adding new (and hopefully better) content as the year progresses. Please let me know what you think: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Once again, check it out here!

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Hey gang! Along with Long Beach locals NOZZA Studio and Bella Fiore, I'm super excited to announce one of the many new things The Wedding Clique is bringing to the wedding industry in 2010. In addition to providing advice, resources, and our own services to brides and grooms, we really want to help industry members connect with each other. We're starting the new year with a bang by hosting TWO mixers this month, one on Friday, January 15th and another the following Friday on January 22nd.

What: The Wedding Clique 2010 Mixer

When: Friday, January 15th for wedding vendors and Friday January 22nd for brides and grooms, from 7PM-midnight

Where: NOZZA Studio and Henry Chen Photography Studio at: 133 The Promenade North, Suites 101 and 104, Long Beach, CA 90802

Bring yourself, your colleagues, and don't forget your business cards to pass out to new friends at the mixer. We've already mailed out the RSVP invitations and are expecting a really great turn out but would love to invite as many interested people as possible. Food and drinks will be provided.

So if you haven't signed up yet but would like to stop by or have any questions, please e-mail henry[at]henrychenphotography[dot]com with your name, company info, and number of guests by this Monday, January 11th. Although we invite you to both mixers, we're encourage wedding vendors to attend the one on the 15th and brides and grooms to attend the one on the 22nd of January. Looking forward to meeting you!