March 24-26, 2012 - Walter E. Washington Convention Center - Washington, DC
For most people at Photoshop World, the first two days has been quite a whirlwind of activity: between the classes/seminars, the Expo and the social activities, it’s sometimes hard to keep up. But along with the thousands of other photographers, designers, artists and techies that are here, I’ve somehow managed… with the help of many trips to Starbucks!
Note: In the photo at right (taken from my hotel room as I write this blog post) the Mandalay Bay Convention Center is near the top left of the photo. A beautiful location for a trade show, wouldn’t you agree?
Day 1 Wrap-Up
After my last post yesterday, I ran into Rob Sylvan, who has a new book just released. Rob works for the NAPP help-desk. His new book, published by Peachpit, is “Taking Stock: Make money in microstock creating photos that sell”. I looked at a copy in the Kelby Training bookstore, and the book contains very useful information, presented in an easy-to-follow format. If you’re selling your images as stock (or thinking about it) check it out!
Next, I went to the Expo for a couple of hours and checked out some really cool new products from Wacom, Nik Software and Topaz Labs. I also chatted with the folks at Epson and checked out the stellar photo prints they had hanging in the booth.
I paid a quick visit to Richard Reyes, my fantastic insurance agent at Hill & Usher, in Phoenix. Richard specializes in providing comprehensive insurance policies for photographers, particularly equipment and liability insurance. I know first-hand that you don’t want to be without proper coverage! I highly recommend Richard and Hill & Usher.
Afterward, I stopped at the Adobe booth, where Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty introduced me to the lovely and talented Julieanne Kost. We chatted about Lightroom, photography, business and life… also in the Adobe booth, I had a great time looking at the lineup of old versions of Photoshop running on the Apple computers of the day. It brought back lots of great memories of my days in design and prepress!
I bought a new Black Rapid camera strap at the Expo, from Midwest Photo Exchange. I really like these straps. Black Rapid sponsored one of my nature photography workshops this past spring in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and I gave away four of these straps to students, who also loved them. I’m writing a product review for Black Rapid and will post on my blog in the next couple of weeks.
To cap off the day, after the Expo many of the Photoshop World staff, instructors and participants went to the After-Hours Party at the House of Blues, where Big Electric Cat played. The band features Scott Kelby on guitar and keyboards, and his wife Kalebra (a killer vocalist), Tony Llanes on guitar, Scott Stahley on drums, and Felix Nelson on bass. They did a long, very tight set of rock classics, and the crowd ate it up!
Day 2
I started my second day at Photoshop World at a lighting seminar presented by the incomparable Joe McNally, which was excellent. In just one hour, Joe demonstrated a whole bunch of techniques for creating really nice light with simple Speedlite flash setups. He made some beautiful portraits of Adobe’s Russell Brown (sorry I couldn’t get any good pics of that…) I also saw the aforementioned Julieanne Kost present “The Creative Composite” during which she demonstrated how she makes her gorgeous photo-montage imagery. Cool stuff!
I spent just a few minutes at the Expo today, where I watched some of the live taping of the latest episode of Photoshop User TV.
Finally, I wrapped up my second day attending a very inspiring presentation by one of my favorite photographers, the great New York-based photographer Jay Maisel, who did two back-to-back sessions on “Light, Gesture and Color”. He presented a large volume of his stellar work and talked about everything from inspiration and perception to lighting and composition. I finished that session feeling exhausted and invigorated at the same time!
That’s it for me today; I’m headed out for dinner and drinks with friends from Denver, including the talented Photoshop retouch artist Armando Martinez.
See you tomorrow!
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Nat Coalson is a photographer, teacher and writer based in Denver. For more information and to see Nat’s work visit www.NatCoalson.com, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
Posted in Blog, Guest Post, Show Coverage
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