I firmly believe in continuing education (even when I have to pay for the said education myself) and every year for pretty much as long as I’ve been in business I’ve attended some sort of a photography workshop, forum or a retreat. My last one was in March of 2020 – I remember boarding the plane to fly to Atlanta for The Family Narrative conference just as WHO declared a global pandemic.

So you can imagine, after a 3 year hiatus due to covid, I was more than excited to resume my photography education. In January I attended a NAPCP Elevate Photography summit in Nashville and in March it was time to fly to Palm Springs for The Family Narrative retreat. Both of these were wonderful and very different from each other. I did not bring my camera to Nashville so have no photos to share:). But I did bring it to me to Palm Springs so hence this post:)

This was my first time in Palm Springs and I LOVED it! I loved everything about it: how laid back it was, how close the mountains were (it seems that you could just reach out and touch them), the weather, the restaurants… I loved the desert and snow capped mountains, stunning sunrises and amazing sunsets.. I loved hanging out with my old photographer friends and meeting new ones.. I loved picking up nuggets of business and technical wisdom that I will use in my business and rediscovering what type of photography brings me joy.

There was time for learning but there was also time for exploring the area – one of my favorite things was waking up before sunrise and driving with a bunch of photog friends to Joshua tree, watching the sun rise over the desert and hiking all over the place. We hung out, had great meals, talked shop (and life) and of course took lots and lots of photos:)

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We stayed at the ACE – it was not super fancy but funky and cool and I would stay there again.

And here are a few places I would recommend for food:

Sandfish Sushi and whiskey – hands down my FAV place out of all the restaurants we visited – it was SOOO GOOD!!! We had all the rolls (literally) and I still dream about their duck liver mousse!

French Miso – french japanese fusion (who would’ve guessed?!

Workshop Kitchen and Bar – very cool, industrial looking place with pretty good food.