Photoshop World - Conference Wrap Up

This conference was a defining moment in my life, I know that sounds cliche and can you really believe that a conference on Photoshop could do more than teach you how to make a picture postcard.

The answer is YES!

You see up to this point in my life I have always strived to be better than I am today and my process for that has always been to learn more subjects instead of focusing on mastering one that I love. Over the past six months I have had the opportunity to step back and look at my life from a different perspective and I have seen that what I want is more creative focus and direction. I spent months thinking about what I really want and what I want to do with the rest of my life.

Enter the Photoshop World conference. When I saw that it was in Orlando I was immediately drawn to it and not to learn some new trick about Photoshop but to be around a group of people with the same interests to discuss and learn and grow from the people around me as well as to get some of those burning questions answered. The conference delivered just that! Not only did I get to interact with other people in my industry, I got to sit and discuss passion and direction with some of the best teachers in the country. The professionals that I had the opportunity to speak with and who took a moment to talk to me about what was next helped me to gain focus and direction on what I want to do creatively. Up to this point I believe that design and photography have been little more than a way to earn money doing something I enjoyed and my proclivity to learn and grow has been more about being better than the next guy and gaining acceptance than a simple passion for what I do.

The thing that makes this a milestone is now I will be moving forward in my creative career from a place of pure passion for what I do and my work has already begun to show that transformation. This is a portrait I took of my wife Alison just after the conference. In this portrait I used techniques that I learned at the conference and on my first attempt I captured probably one of my best portraits to date. You wouldn't know it by looking at it but this was taken on my back porch with one hot light, a neutral colored background and a piece of white foam core for bouncing light. No strobe, it's not outdoors and it's actually at night.

From this week I was able to make a decision in my own mind and for myself that photography is where I will be for the rest of my life and my design will continue to offer me a way to have a unique voice in the industry. Today I start doing for me and not for everyone else and I know I am going to have so much fun doing it. Keep an eye out for some really fun and interesting photo studies that I've already begun working on.

Always remember you have the ability to be whatever you want to be and that the world is at your fingertips to help get you there, all you need to do is ask for what you want and it will find it's way into your life.

Thank you to everyone that took the time to interact with me throughout the conference. You made more of an impact than you probably thought.

Photoshop World - Day Four

Up at 5:30am, if you've been following the posts that means I am damn tired at this point and hope I can make it through the day. Classes were great again and again they kept me awake. Some of these classes they do are full on real world experience type classes like the one from the morning, The Art of Photographing Women. In this class they had a photographer and a model from California and they did a full on model shoot from start to finish, light setup, posing, everything that would go on in a live shoot which was so great. From there they took 3 of the best photos from the shoot and did a class on retouching later in the day. These classes were just another thing that made the event more than worthwhile, you just can't get this kind of broad based intense training anywhere else.

Today I had an opportunity to sit with Joe McNally and review my portfolio. It is just so great that a guy like this will take the time to sit with any one of over 3000 attendees and give his thoughts on my work and where to go with it. I can't say enough to thank him for that, I can only take everything he said and apply it to what I do in the future and you can believe that those few minutes will make a world of difference in where I go from here with my work.

I don't think I can say anything else about the influence this conference has had on me but I can't wait to get started on the future! Keep an eye out for future photography posts as I have a bunch of assignments and studies I will be doing as the next step in my photography career.

Photoshop World - Day Three

Talk about a long day. Up at 3:30am to get to the convention center by 5:30am to get in line for Midnight Madness tickets. It was way too early but we all had a good time and kept each other awake during the two hour wait. Once the day got started I was afraid that I might be sleeping through some of the lessons but the classes were so great that I soon forgot that I was tired. As I said before this was my first time at Photoshop World and what a conference. This was amazing, the level of expertise at this conference was unbelievable.

One of my classes taught by a great wedding photographer, David Ziser, who was just awesome. Some of my portfolio reviewers have been saying that I break a lot of rules with my photography but that it works a lot of the time. In this class he teaches 60 rules in 60 minutes and from what I understand once I know the rules I'm allowed to break them. I also had an opportunity to have David Ziser review my portfolio and I have to say thank you for taking the time out of your day and sharing your thoughts with me. Each one of these reviews is playing a very important part in my finding my voice as a photographer and it has been just a wonderful experience.

The classes taught were not even the end of it. Today we had a special event called The Art of Photography and there are not words to describe the impact this event had on me. This was the most amazing event of the entire conference. A panel of 8 of the most talented photographers including the likes of Joe McNally, Moose Peterson and Jay Maisel were all there to show off the photos that make them love their work and their art. The impact this had on me as a photographer will forever influence my work. If you were to pay for and go to this conference for only this one thing it was money well spent. That being said take 4 days of hands on instruction from some of the top people in the design and photography industries plus a tech expo showcasing the latest technologies and wow!

To top off the day remember that line I was sitting in at 5:30am, well those tickets were for Midnight Madness which was that night! Yeah I know, I did the math too and yes it was a loooong day! The event was a lot of fun and on the way back to my car I took some time to see what I could capture if I put some of the techniques and concepts from the days teachings into action. Needless to say I didn't get back home until 2:30am.

Photoshop World - Day Two

The second day of the conference was absolutely spectacular! The classes were great and the expo showed off some great products and techniques. I'm so excited to get in and start working with all the new techniques and tools. That being said there is just way too much to say to update tonight and I am getting up at 3:30 in the morning to make it down to the convention center early enough to be one of the 200 people in line for Midnight Madness tickets. Tomorrow will be a very long day and so I will update the blog with all the rest of the show experiences over the weekend as well as some of my best shots from the week so be sure to check back.

I do want to be sure to say a very special thanks to Judy Host (www.judyhost.com), Eddie Tapp (www.eddietapp.com) and Jack Reznicki (www.reznicki.com) for taking the time to review my portfolio and give me some of the most important feedback I could get at this point in my photography career. I will definitely be taking advantage of the opportunity to learn from the direction of these very talented artists and I sincerely thank you all for your time.

Photoshop World - Day One

Today was the first official day of Photoshop World, the pre conference workshops. My workshop was the Canon Live Studio instructed by Eddie Tapp and Jack Reznicki who were absolutely wonderful and shared some great lessons, tips and tricks. Jack Reznicki was exceptional and took a process that I believed to be complicated and involved and did a great job at simplifing the basic ideas. I thought we'd be looking at 6 hours of diagrams for different light setups and the technical aspects of a studio setup and instead we learned to "See the Light" to really understand how light works and how to apply that knowledge in the studio. I had the pleasure of being picked to model for an example and had a portrait taken by Jack Reznicki that I was privileged to take with me in a large format print from a new Canon inkjet they were demonstrating. Yeah Me!



Eddie Tapp is a very proficient instructor in Photoshop and I love taking a class like this because even though I have been using these programs for 10+years I still learn new things, or even better I see a new way of doing something I've been doing for 10 years.

I also had an opportunity to meet a few new people and it's really great to sit and talk shop with other photographers. Gina, Brian and Fred were all Photoshop World regulars and helped to give me a warm welcome at my first time out so thanks for the very welcome conversation and it was great to meet you all.

If this first day is any indication of the things to come then I am in for a great week of learning and networking. I look forward to writing tomorrow nights entry and sharing my day with the world.

Until then...