Refraining from using the phrase "small world"

As you probably already know, my wife owns a beach wedding business called Perfect Florida Beach Wedding.  She stages small beach weddings in Tampa, Clearwater and St. Peterburg.

Today she got a call from a woman who is looking for some work.  She is a minister and wedding officiant.

"I'm thinking of moving to St. Petersburg," she said, "and I don't know that I want to start my business up all over again.  It might be better to just work for someone else for a while."

Bobbi chatted with her for a bit and as she was talking, she went to her website online.  The woman looked familiar.

"You live in St. Thomas" Bobbi asked?

"Yes"

"You marry people at Meghan's Bay?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Well, you won't have to audition if you work for us," Bobbi said.

"Why not," she asked?

"Because you married us" Bobbi answered.

Does this mean I can call myself "Award Winning"

I'm a member of the Tampa Area Professional Photographers Association.  I joined last year, mainly because I felt that I didn't know enough of my fellow photographers in Tampa.  It's been a great experience so far, everyone is very nice and welcoming.

One of the things that they take very seriously in The Professional Photographers of America is competition.  It's called a "Salon" and it's very cool to watch.  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.  There are three judges and your score is the average of their three scores.  The judges are free to challenge any score and argue with the other judges.  It was fascinating to watch the whole process.

I should point out that the biggest reason that I enjoyed it so much is that there seems to be great care taken to reach a fair decision.  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am argumentative by nature.  If there's a contest, I'm the first person to point out any potential flaw in the judging, etc.  The PPA system of judging is very impressive.  (I won't go into it here, I'm sure it's online somewhere.)

Fastest Photo Booth in Tampa Bay?

So, I was all set for the Father/Daughter Dance at McKitrick Elementary.  I was going to set up a portrait station with professional lighting (just like last year), only this year we would be printing every picture on site so that everyone would have a keepsake to take home to Mom.

The week before the dance I get an email from the school.  The demand for tickets was a little more than expected (oops!) and they were expecting over 500 people for the two-and-a-half hour dance.

Well, I like to think that I can work fast but I can't work THAT fast!

So, we converted to The Vogue Booth.  There are several key differences between a portrait station and The Vogue Booth.  With a portrait station you bring posing stools and big lights.  With The Vogue Booth there are no chairs and I use a ring flash.  Vogue Booth prints look more like a photo booth print (but better because of the ring flash).  No posing stool means we can shoot faster.

It's "Mr. Mean" to you pal...

Today, Bobbi walked into the living room and said, "Someone is using one of our pictures on their website."

Bobbi is designing a new arbor for Perfect Florida Beach Wedding and was looking for inspiration.  She came across a website that rents arbors in another state and was quite surprised to discover a picture from http://www.perfectfloridabeachwedding.com/ .

It's a picture of a rose petal heart in the sand.  Bobbi built it, I photographed it.  It has her company logo stamped in the bottom right-hand corner.

The one that was on the other website was enlarged and had the logo photoshopped out.  They kept the nice custom black border and drop shadow that I created, however.

Needless to say, Bobbi was shocked.  "What should I do?" she asked.