This past Memorial Weekend I had the pleasure of spending some time in Washington D.C. at a buddies house. Chris Usher and I met a couple years ago and became friends through working on his "One of Us" book project ( it's a great photo essay on the destruction and impact that Hurricane Katrina had on the people of New Orleans and other areas devastated by the storm ). We hooked up with another friend, Kyle Murphy, a brilliant and upcoming photographer out of Ann Arbor, Michigan to do some shooting in the Capital over the long weekend.

When I arrived at Chris's house Friday morning, the first thing he mentions is that we're meeting up with a group of his friends, fellow photographers from the D.C. area, for some conversation and "Faux Soup". Being an out of towner, I shook my head in agreement ( inside my head I'm thinking "Great, these people are into performance art and I get to sit through some esoteric blather while pretending to eat fake soup" ). So, we pick up Kyle at the airport and soon head off to lunch. I've still got this "fake soup" thing running through my head and after driving 6+ hours to get to D.C., I'm pretty hungry.

Arriving for lunch at this little Vietnamese restaurant, about 12-16 people are gathered around a big table talking shop, Chris had mentioned some names, all high end professionals like David Hobby "Strobist", John Harrington a photographer and the author of "Best business practices for photographers" and Ralph Alswang, White House Press photographer and all around ballbuster ( very good at it too ), just to mention a few.

Immediately, I'm struck by how personable everyone is. Susana Raab was showing me her latest catalog "Rank Strangers", a very nicely done book with clean colorful images. I could say "her images showed the struggle of existentialism in a conformist society" type thing, but, in the end it was the crisp clean images that stuck in my head. Besides, that goes back to the performance art / faux soup thing. John Harrington had me captivated, it's no wonder that his book is doing as well as it is. Scott and I had started this venture about a year ago and I'm thinking that we are clearly in need of this book. I get home and find out Scott already owns it ( no surprise there, he's always up on the latest and greatest ). The most exciting part of the day for me, other than realizing the soup was real ( more on this... ), was talking with The Strobist. David Hobby has been writing a killer blog about flash photography especially the use of SB800's which are the units Scott and I primarily use, there's a link to his sight on the right. My friend and business partner Scott Slattery turned me onto the Strobist about a year ago, I hit strobist.com as much as possible and here I am talking with the founder in person. The class act that he is, David Hobby credits Chris Usher with the concept of "Strobist".

So, Now I need to have a photo taken with David just to show Scott ( cuz, I know he'd freak ) and I ask Kyle to take a photo of the two of us. We're about 15 seconds into the shoot when the "Strobist" kicks into gear. David moves us over closer to the window for better lighting then switches place with me to reduce the reflection in his glasses. I'm not even in town 3 hours and already I'm getting tutored by some of the best in the industry.

Anywho, as Kyle, David and I are walking to the front of the restaurant, leaving behind my soup that was excellent but had to be left for cold ( it's a cruel world when your hungry and order soup only to be given a pair of chop sticks to eat it with. I was making such a mess, I had to abandon lunch. ), I look up at the window in the restaurant and see the name "Pho75". A light goes on in my head... Pho soup, not Faux soup! This explained a lot, since I had expected to walk into a bunch of mime's holding cameras doing the fake "oh, the back of my camera opened and all my film is exposed!" in a slow motion manner that only performance artists would do. And instead, ended up meeting some truly great people. Which makes more sense, because every successful photographer that I've ever met had fantastic personalities ( but, that's a subject for a different day ).

Thank you everyone at "Pho75" for a great experience and thank you John for picking up the tab.

• Scott Crist