Awesome quote of my day:

F**k off, I’m gonna call f***ing PETA on your *sses

See below for the full story and video, but first let me tell you about a wonderful thing . . . it’s called geekfest.

You’ll no doubt see my chubby cheeks clearly in the center of that pic surrounded by a multitude of talented, freelancers, students, professional multimedia/visual storytellers. While Melissa Lyttle of APAD fame organized this amazing conference. What struck me as different from the only other photo event I’ve attended (Women in Photojournalism a couple years back) was that many of the photographers were young, they were innovative, creative and while still journalists they straddled fine art and journalism in a way that many long time news photographers don’t seem to do.

All of the speakers were phenomenal. My favorites included Dai Sugano of the Mercury News. His work is visual storytelling, just amazing stuff I recommend you click on his website that I’ve linked to his name. Damon Winters of the New York Times just blows your mind . . . I don’t know if I could ever see like that and Nicole Fruge of the San Antonio Express-News had this attitude, even after years as a freelancer, news photographer that was so infectious and well, happy.

I could go on for ages about geekfest, but I’ve included a couple photos above and a really, really cool video I made when I got home and couldn’t sleep. Watch it below, I promise it’s worth it. The music is Santigold and the game, it’s shuffleboard

Point A – Ft. Lauderdale
Point B – St. Petersburg
Point ? – Frogs
Point C – Ft. Lauderdale

Watch the video for Point Frogs. Watch tomorrow for a new post.

Oh and check out the story I covered today about Iguuuuanas. Specifically the kind that are, well, wild animals. This one bit a little girl, got sent out to photograph the iguana catchers doing their thing, but when they went to the home where the 7-foot beast allegedly lives we were told to f-off. Actually this is my first experience using “bleeping” in a video. Quite fun.

This is the link, but mind you the video will be posted tomorrow most likely.