15th Annual Taliah Waajid Presents WORLD Natural Hair Health & Beauty Show

15th Annual Taliah Waajid Presents WORLD Natural Hair Health & Beauty Show

APRIL 28th - 29th, 2012

Georgia International Convention Center

College Park, GA

Yes... I went to College Park Bubba Sparks! Can't say the name of the city without thinking of the song!
The wonderful Nappy Hutt Hair Salon in Savannah brought me along to the ATL to document there involvement in the Hair Show! As there photographer networking opportunities and many doors have opened up to me. I am blessed to be working with them.  Not to mention this hair show was my first legit event since I had been working with Shannon and I got a chance to use my new camera bag he got me! (my very first one). I also used my triggers, my flash, and borrowed a zoom lens from a friend. And with an event must of course come my assistant...PERRY! He was a great help at the event and I utilized this reunion to teach him how to use my new gadgets and even shoot on his own since I had to model for the salon to show off the hair style they did.

Note to self and anyone who attends a hair show..IF you go there with cool hair be prepared to be photographed! Almost every person I shot wanted to take a cell phone pic of my hair as well! I was primarily shooting for the Nappy Hutt but I wanted to photograph a lot of the really nice booths and take group shots and display images in hopes that someone may want to buy it from me or get business from me after seeing their awesome image.

The hair show was two days long. The first day was followed by the "Natural Hair Crowning Affair" This is the 2nd year the hair show has held a pageant like event where the winner represents natural hair and promotes it and works as a paid spokesmodel for Taliah Waajid Black Earth Products. This black tie event led me to photograph my very first celebrities! The hosts were award winning actress Kimberly Elise and Actor/Comedian Bone Hampton. I also photographed a performance by singer Folami who had a killer voice and bought about 6 images from that night off of my online page where I posted all the images. The final day of the hair show (Sunday) was concluded by a performance by TANK! Who just came out with a new album. Every time I hear his song on the radio I am taken back to this day when I say him sing it right in front of my face! :) Also there was a visit by the man i know best from Soul Food and other movie/television roles Darrin Dewitt Henson! He even voiced in site on a future show where him and Tank will be acting as brothers!

Amongst all the action that went on in those 2 days some valuable lessons were learned and some unfortunate experiences happened.  The not so good should be said first... There were a lot of cameras and shooters at the event which was expected with the size of the production. But when it came to taking pictures of like Tank or even the models I got greeted like I wasn't a photographer just some chick taking pics for the fun of it. The Tank security guard was even meaner letting some unprofessional chick through before me... But Perry kinds helped me out with that, ya win some you loose some and either way I got great shots of everything! For my first time at this show I am HELLA proud and blessed! The show was a great networking experience and I hope that Taliah Waajid catches wind of my images like her supporters have. Since the show I have had over 30+ additional likes on my facebook page and over 100 comments, likes, and views. Valuable lesssons learned...Facebook SUCKS when it comes to uploading hundreds of photos. I wanted to post them there because people took my card and went to my website and followed my website to the FB page and to the pics. But facebook killed the quality of the images especially the ones where I had to use a high ISO. So I sent all I mean EVERY SINGLE IMAGE TAKEN AT THE HAIR SHOW IS EDITED AND WAITING FOR YOU TO SEE ON WWW.SAJECREATIONS.SMUGMUG.COM
I feel like its better to put them there anyway since you can like an image, share it on facebook and or Twitter. One last awesome thing is that Bone Hampton liked my images and even shared it on his own page!


To my surprise and excitement there is ANOTHER hair show in October, the FALL hair show. They do this thing TWO TIMES EVERY YEAR! But now I understand why. Up until the final hour or so the lines to get in are out the door! Companies come from all over! East coast to west coast i met people from all over!

I know this post was long awaited and I apologize for the wait. Even my original website needs to be updated, I'm behind but I am also a student and tryna juggle a lot of balls and I'm juggling just fine, with the exception of some balls getting caught in the clouds for a minute before coming down lol.
Extended metaphor? Why not :)

Again All the images are on my smugmug account page: www.sajecreations.smugmug.com Enjoy them and share them!