It’s that time of year again. My annual pilgrimage to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada for Autodesk University. Autodesk is the leader in design software for the Architecture, Engineering and Entertainment industries, helping people bring buildings, bridges, cars, and movies to life. While I’m am known here as a photographer, I am also an Architect and have been using Autodesk’s software for about 14 years now. For three days some of the most talented people in the world will be coming together at The Mandalay Bay Casino Hotel and Convention Center to share their knowledge with others in the industry that want that extra edge to become the experts and leaders in the respected fields. So from December 1-3 thousands will be flocking to the desert for intense training, where you basically start your day at 6am and go non stop till 9pm cramming your head with information.
I like always will be flying out a few days early and staying a few days longer for a little rest and fun. This year I will be participating in a bunch of other activities organized by Autodesk’s Shaan Hurley. Shaan is Autodesk’s Platform Evangelist, a photo geek, and social media guru. He has taken it upon himself to organize a blogger’s social so everyone blogging about the event can meet face to face, and a tweetup so that all active twitter’s can do the same. But what I am looking forward to the most is the Shutterbug tour that he is organizing. On the days prior to and following the conference Shaan will be running photo tours of the desert. So on this trip I will be getting the best of both worlds, fulfilling my continuing education to help my office operate at peak performance, and my artistic side, and adding to my growing my photography portfolio.
On the photoshoot end, the tentative schedule is Sunday to drive up to Valley of Fire to hike around the desert and photograph sunset. Monday explore Hoover Dam, the new Hoover Dam bi-pass bridge, Lake Mead, and the old mining town of Oatman Arizona. The Friday following the conference, we are scheduled to head out to Death Valley to hike around there and again shoot some spectacular desert sunsets. On Saturday, friend and co-worker Adam Ferris and I will be taking a tour of the Neon Boneyard, which is a museum being built in Las Vegas that will house all the old signs from hotels that are no longer on the strip, keeping the history of the city alive. I also plan on taking some time to walk the strip at night and photograph all the bright lights of this adult Disneyland.
Provided I have the time I will be blogging photos from the week, but at least you will be able to see all the photos on my flickr and I will have a wrap-up blog entry the following week.
That’s it for now
