Photo Courtesy of Kandis Broadhead, Wish Photography

Man oh man, summer has come and gone and I am just NOW able to sit down and write about the experience I had at Wish Retreat this year … which, yes, was quite a few weeks ago in June. Yikes! Anyway … This year was a lot different than last year, but very much the same at the same time. Last year I was so nervous – and this year it felt like coming home to see old friends. Kandis, Amy, Nat and Jess have stayed in contact with me over the last year, so I was SO stinking excited to see them. I got to meet Abby the morning before Retreat started, to do a little boudoir (ooooh!) … but then when we finally got to the house, that’s when Retreat really got started.

We spent the next four days laughing and loving, having so many amazing shoots that Kandis put together. My favorite day was definitely our first shoot – couples with four of the most amazing couples, which I’ll be blogging soon! – and then the bridal sessions on our last day of shooting. This year, Kandis arranged for a bunch of super adorable little girls to come pose for us, but since I don’t really specialize in children, those most likely won’t make my editing queue. We spent an entire day talking about business and editing, and learning some new tricks that Kandis has learned since last year – this year we focused a bit more on editing in ACR than using actions, which is great. I use Lightroom 4 for 95% of my editing, so I was able to take the lessons learned and apply it to Lightroom.

More than anything, it was just so fabulous to be with old friends again, and to be back visiting Utah. Randy and the kids actually drove out to SLC at the end of Retreat, so Kandis could do our family photos at one of my favorite spots up in Park City, and we celebrated Noah’s 4th birthday out there!

I am bummed I won’t be going again to Wish Retreat … We are really limiting how many workshops we go to each year and next year we are making our first ever trek to WPPI in Vegas, and so that’s where we are putting our workshop focus on for 2014. Kandis is a great teacher though, and I know that future Retreats are going to just keep getting better and better!