I had the opportunity to attend APAD’s GeekFest 2011 this past weekend. With a title like that, you know it’s going to rock, right?

A Photo a Day is a group started by two photographers who wanted to share inspiration and ideas by exchanging one photo a day with each other. It has since morphed into a huge group of over 1,300 photographers who send/receive 70-80 emails per day with photos, discussions, critiques, and overall photog camaraderie.

From APAD came GeekFest, a then-infant photo conference with about 10 people who all just wanted to put faces to names and “geek out” about photography together. (Full history here: GeekFest, a brief history of.)

Now, with well over 100 attendees coming from all over, GeekFest brings a three-day lineup of compassionate, enthusiastic photographers to give talks, share ideas, show their work, and, well, geek out some more.

I was fortunate enough to join the festivities when GeekFest came to Denver this weekend.

We heard from professionals – new and veteran – we heard from students, we heard from bloggers, we heard from those specializing in print, web, social, video, war, community, documentary, and multimedia.

I was, sadly, only able to attend on Saturday (as I shot a wedding Friday and had to work on Sunday), but in only one day I walked away with bundles of new inspiration packaged away in my brain and spirit.

There’s something truly extraordinary about packing a bunch of photographers shoulder-to-shoulder in front of a big screen to hear from and see the work of their peers. To openly talk about challenges, triumphs, advice, sorrows, joys. To realize we really are all in this together.

As a budding freelance photographer and new co-owner of a photog business, I know it’s extremely easy to get overwhelmed with the path ahead. It’s an exciting, fulfilling path in so many ways, but it can also be rather full of difficulties and stress and anxiety. There are a lot of variables and a lot of questions.

However, I feel like many of those questions were answered this weekend with a resounding: Go for it! You got this! You can do it!

Among so much else, this weekend showed me how many people are ready to back you up and support you in this community, if you just ask.

(And as proof – above is a fancy phone photo I shot of a print auction organized for GeekFest. Attending photographers donated one or two prints of their work to be auctioned off to raise funds for the Chris Hondros Fund. Chris Hondros was a conflict photographer who was killed in Libya on April 20, 2011. He died telling the stories of others, and this fund – established by his fiance – raises money to support future conflict photojournalists. I heard almost $2,000 was raised from this GeekFest auction. Rock on, fellow geeks!)