Note: Photographers’ Friday is a weekly blog series directed toward professional photographers, and in some instances, serious amateur photographers. All Photographers’ Friday blog posts will assume that readers have a basic working knowledge of digital SLR cameras, but if you’re left with questions or don’t understand any of the information, don’t hesitate to ask. We love e-mails!

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Last night we stepped off the plane and breathed in the Florida air. Salty air. The air of home. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the California air we’ve been breathing for the past week. The air always smells sweetest when you’re at your happiest.

From Sunday night through Wednesday night, we spent some of the best days of our lives with some of the best photographers in the world, and some of the best people you could ever ask to meet. United 2013 — I officially dub you an outstanding success. Everyone who participated learned so, so much. But most of it wasn’t really about photography.

There are bigger lessons than how to compose a stunning portrait and learning to use off camera light. Don’t get me wrong — those things are essential to photographers, and we learned plenty about them in Santa Barbara this week. Even more though, we learned about values and living lives built around what we believe in. We learned how life will feel empty even if we reach all our photography goals — unless those goals are in pursuit of something bigger than ourselves. We learned about service — to our families and friends, our clients, our industry, our world at large. And that was the whole theme: United to Serve.

The wonderful people at Showit who put this event on (and I’ll be blogging lots more about it next week . . . and probably in the weeks after that, too) had a much more important objective for the attendees than simply having us leave as better photographers. They wanted us to leave as better people.

So that’s my challenge today as Danny and I sit down to debrief this conference. How are we going to be better people after this week? That’s my challenge to you. How are you going to use your business, your gifts, your talents, to serve and share and shape the world?(PS — this Instagram shot came from the shoot Mike Larson led at the amazing Villa Sevillano in Carpinteria, and yes, we’ll be blogging lots more of this shoot soon!)

~ Laura