I’ve been a SmugMug user for a little over 4 years now.  And, if you’ve been reading Photography Bay for a while, you know that I’ve been a big fan since day one.  The handful of times that I’ve emailed customer service, I’ve gotten an response and solution within minutes.  They listen to their customers, and the prices are incredibly generous for the service delivered.

I’ve heard about SMUGs (aka SmugMug User Groups) before, but I had never been to SMUG meet up – until this week.

Our local SMUG held its first meet up with about 35 photographers who came to hear Knoxville pet and family photographer Julie Poole talk about Photography Business Do’s.  Julie rocked her presentation, and we all hung out together for a couple of hours.

After Julie’s presentation, I got the chance to chat with Knoxville wedding photographer (and local SMUG leader) Shannon Kelley about the support SmugMug has shown us already.  Kelley and SmugMug have plotted a great schedule over the next few months of hot photography topics to help us all move to new levels as well as just have some plain old fun.

If you’ve never been to a SMUG before, head over to SmugMug and see if there’s one in your area.  You don’t have to be a SmugMug customer to attend – and they’re always free.  If there’s not a SMUG in your area, hit the contact link on the SMUG info page to see about starting one.

Finally, here are a couple of short clips from our first SMUG meet up: