I just got back from five fantastic days at the AFPV congress in Cullera, Spain, where I did a presentation about what I call “Photography 2.0″. It was basically a condensed version of all the business related articles on this blog. I really didn’t know what to expect from this congress but I decided to stay for the whole event instead of just coming over for my lecture. I needed a couple of days away from the daily struggles. After all the cold and snow in Belgium, I was greeted with this view when looking out of the window in my hotel room on the first day.

The official part of the congress started on Sunday morning with some speeches. One of the people who spoke there was Neil Warner. I talked to Neil for hours and discovered a fun person, passionate photographer and a smart businessman. He gave me lots of interesting tips and I talked to him about my vision on the future of the industry and the power of social media. It made me realize that we often stay too much within our own generations when it comes to sharing.

It was Luc Peeters (the guy on the left in the pic above) that suggested me as a speaker to the Spanish. He also did the live English to Spanish translation for my lecture at 5 pm on that same Sunday. It was the first time that I spoke to a big audience that didn’t understand much English but they were incredibly patient with me. The minutes of applause, hugs and kisses after my lecture were incredibly heart warming. You can see some pics from my lecture here.

I was too busy talking to interesting people, attending lectures and having fun to take any pictures until the next night. On that Monday night there was a dressed dinner and party. We all got a long black dress and being all creative people it was fun to see how everyone tried to create something original with the same ingredients.

This blog post would be endless if I talked about each and everyone who inspired me so I’ll just pick some out.

The tall guy with his hand in the air in the left picture below is Italian wedding photographer Antonio Fascicolo. If I had to describe him and his work in one word, I would definitely say: “elegance”. Many of his pictures have simply blown me away. Based upon his work and appearance I guess I kind of expected him to be a bit of a big headed artist. But I couldn’t have been more wrong, Antonio is just want of the sweetest and wackiest people I know.

In the picture below you see Luc Peeters with Swiss photographer Oli Rust. Despite he’s only 30 years old, Oli leads a successful photo studio and combines that with fashion, advertising and personal photography. For me it was great to see that Oli in his presentation pretty much confirmed everything I said in mine about social media. Oli couldn’t stay long but that didn’t stop us from having a couple of very interesting conversations.

I’m really sorry that I missed the first part of Rebeca Saray’s lecture/demo. It’s not that I’m a Gothic expert (or a fan) but I recognize good original work. But what did strike me most about Rebeca is that she does her kind of photography just because that’s what she likes to do. She didn’t take the easiest path but being true to her passion paid off. I really respect her as a photographer and a warm person.

The congress ended with a gala night where they also presented the awards for outstanding photography in different fields. Two winners that really amazed me are Josu Izarra and Clemente Jimenez Santander (his site should be ready soon, add him on Facebook if you can’t wait to see his work).

A big thanks to the organizers, volunteers, speakers and all the participants of Cullera 2010. Luc told me in advance that there’s always a good atmosphere on the AFPV congresses but I was still blown away. It’s one of those things you can’t explain, you just have to experience the spirit of Cullera. I really hope I can go back for the next edition.

On the last day I did a short “Flambient Light” demo, I’ll blog about it one of these days.