Click Away. What a beautiful experience. A photography conference unlike anything I’ve done before! Spending 4 days in Amelia Island, Florida at the Omni Resort was inspiring and rejuvenating. I met women from literally all over the world who were all SO nice, extremely talented, and have the same fears, thrills, dreams, and goals as me. Outside of the 2 classes I was able to teach, I got to listen to 4 speakers (Ruthie Lindsey, Jeremy Chou, Ginger Unzueta, and Virginia Greuloch) and participate in 3 live shoots (The Scobeys, Teresa Vick, and Chloe Ramirez). My journal is full of notes and quotes and scribbles of information from their wisdom shared! Each person inspired me in really beautiful and unique ways. Another huge thank you to Shootproof for sponsoring my classes and being amazing at what they do! Anddd thank you Clickin Moms for spoiling me and introducing me to so many incredible people!

For this trip, I decided to take less pictures and record more videos! I’m no videographer at all, but it’s been a while since I made one of these little montages, so be sure to watch my recap of the conference.

Click Away 2018 from kiyah crittendon on Vimeo.

My first class was with Ashley & Graham Scobey, who are a husband + wife wedding photography team based in Denver. They are so great! Both professionally and personally. We actually know some of the same people because they lived here in Atlanta for years before moving to Denver. I was eager to take their class about photographing couples in challenging situations aka in difficult light, with ugly locations, and when you’re out of ideas. It was such a bummer that the models we were supposed to be photographing ended up getting sick with the flu right before the class, but Ashley & Graham still totally rocked it being both our models AND our teachers. I loved this class because it really left me feeling way better about shooting in direct sunlight (hello sunlight in the middle of the day on the beach) and they taught us a really fun game to play with couples to get some silly reactions from them.

To say I was nervous to teach my two classes would be an understatement! I was petrified. But, man, did everything go so well! I got to walk through my shooting and creative process with 20 amazing photographers that were eager to learn, experiment, make mistakes, and capture beauty. We had two great couples to work with and the grounds of the hotel were so beautiful to shoot around. Seeing these photographers’ eyes light up with new ideas and ways to shoot was definitely the highlight of my time at Click Away!

Teresa Vick’s class rocked my world! It started with a therapy session… I mean a conversation about the importance of self-portraits. How we as women tend to stray away from pictures of ourselves for SO many reasons, but in reality, self-portraits are a beautifully excruciating process that gives birth to images for us, for our families, for our generations, for our own well-being, despite what we look like (or think we look like) in the mirror. Teresa encouraged us to not wait to take self-portraits. To start now! So that we can run toward the uncomfortable and see more in ourselves than we ever had before. As soon as I got home from Click Away, I ordered a trigger and a new tripod so I could dive into this journey. So far, it’s been really hard but really rewarding. It’s been teaching me patience and self-acceptance like never before.

Chloe Ramirez’s class was also such a fun one! She’s a lifestyle photographer based in Sacramento and taught us all about photographing couples in their own homes, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. We used one of the hotel suites and learned how the most important thing with these types of sessions is capturing authentic comfortability. In-home sessions can involve so many activities like cooking, drinking coffee, snuggling on the bed, curling up on the couch, or relaxing in the backyard. Plus, it’s a beautiful way to capture a place that they are the most themselves.

Leaving you with a quote that I’m holding on to and that pretty much sums up my experience at Click Away 2018. Can’t wait for next year!