Wellness Together 2026
As part of an automated business strategy, I paid (without my knowledge: it was included in the bundle of programs that I got) for an automatic task scheduler. The task scheduler has prompted me to create blog posts for every shoot that I book. It must be intelligent. And although I do not think that this website is very well-trafficked at all, I will, nonetheless, endeavor to share some images from the 2026 Wellness Together conference that I took photos of, along with (because this is a site foregrounding writing) WORDS.
In preparation for a wedding at the Madonna Inn (which my automatic task scheduler will whip me into blogging about soon), I threw all of my camera gear into Andrew’s car. I needed some of it for the conference that Andrew and I were going to shoot. That conference is the Wellness Together conference. So Andrew carpooled us down to San Diego. He did video for the conference. And we met Elora in the lobby of the hotel across from the San Diego Convention Center, who we hired to be the second-shooter. We unloaded gear in the hotel room. We slept.
I am not sure what the task scheduler requires of me, so I will share a photograph from the next day. A screenshot of a photograph from my Lightroom Catalogue. Look. It is the Reading Rainbow guy. I took a photo of him holding up the children’s book that he published. Libraries are important, he said. He is a library worker. For those of you who do not go to libraries, that means that he works in a library. He says he’s bookish.
So we took pictures all day on Wednesday and all day on Thursday. Andrew and I left after taking a group photo on Friday morning, to drive up to San Luis Obisbo for a queer wedding at the Madonna Inn. Which is besides the point. Here is another image of someone important. She enjoyed when I took pictures of her, and we had a sort of visual, gestural banter that goes on when someone notices the photographer taking their picture, and begins to pose and thanks you for the pictures that you sent them. (This is not one of those photos.)
Here is an image of some guests. They are smiling and walking. What a crazy outfit! The conference did not only include speakers, but also people who heard their speeches. The guests participated in “breakout sessions,” and I am here to tell you about one of the “breakout sessions.” Read about it below the photo.
Elora and I, as part of the job, walked around to different rooms that hosted “breakout sessions,” where a speaker who had specialized knowledge presented their findings with the attendees of the conference. And one of those breakout rooms was run by a man who looked like a surfer. His eyes were slightly jaundiced, and at the entrance to the room was an object that looked like a toaster oven with slots for people’s phones. People, before enterring the room, all put their phones into the toaster-oven-shaped device. And I walked up to, as was my job, take a photograph of this. It was a detail. People like details. People like images of their details. And the man, who looked like a surfer, with slightly jaundiced eyes, sprinted up to me, and said, “what are you doing?!” and I said, “I’m the professional photographer here,” and showed him my badge, and he said, “this is a no phone room, so no photos,” and I thought of how esoteric it is to exist in a room without a phone. “Iconoclastic,” I thought. And I said, “no, don’t worry, I’m with Wellness Together, the people who run this conference,” and he said, “then talk to Melissa or Britney,” and I said, “ok,” and then he explained his whole program to me.
“We give these people film cameras, and they can take pictures of each other on the disposable film cameras, instead of their phones.” I think of how Ocean Vuong, in a recent Oprah Interview (Oprah was not at this conference), talked about the condition of surveillance that young people feel, and that the condition of being surveilled discourages young people from taking creative risks, or even dancing in clubs. And I am not sure whether it matters if the image posted on Instagram is taken on a film camera or on an iPhone camera: surveillance is surveillance is surveillance. At least people notice the camera flash on a disposable film camera. They can see who is taking the image. A phone is more discreet. (I do not think this room was for me, a photographer who thinks about images, but instead for people trying to resist the tide of perpetual algorithmic images: film is a small, incomplete resistance).
And so I walked away, and continued taking photos.
The conference consistently spoke out against AI, especially AI girlfriends for students (“What about AI boyfriends?” I thought. I’m opposed to those as well). And I know that the impulse towards film is an impulse against algorithmically-generated images. I know the impulse towards screenshotting my images in Lightroom, though less robust (maybe?) comes from that same impulse.
Anyways, that is the blog post. Stay tuned for more, and hire me for photography (email blake.a.williams@live.com).
-Blake