Photoshop World Day 3 Recap
Holy cow... I've got sore feet and I'm exhausted, yet I feel great after having my brain stuffed full of information for the past few days! Today was day 3 of Photoshop World Atlanta and concluded the conference, but there still were a few highlights to share.
I started the day with Vincent Versace and a class about using LED lighting. It was a wildly fascinating class and he had some super cool lights - including the Ice Light which is basically an LED light saber for portraits. I'm not a big user of external lighting, but I still believe it's important to understand the fundamentals of properly lighting a subject. Although my subject is rarely a human, the same principles that apply to humans apply to lighting virtually anything else.
I also saw classes from Frank Doorhof and a class from Julieann Kost to round out my morning. Between classes, however, I again hit the expo floor in search of new stuff to discuss.....
- Model shoot. As I mentioned earlier this week, Westcott brings some models and sets them up for the conference attendees to shoot during the week. I took a few snaps of the various models but have been so busy, that I really haven't had a chance to do much editing. This isn't a finished photo, but it gives you a sense of what Westcott offers the photographers....
One of the models photographed this week as part of Westcott's live model shoot. I like the mischievous look in her eyes - it's like she's trying to sell you cigarettes knowing that she's going to give you lung cancer and then, once you are dead, she can steal your camera. Or something like that....
- More aerial photography. I was sent some questions about the aerial copters I previewed in earlier blogs, so I went back to get more information for everyone. The specific question here was about the various iOS apps used to fly the copter and what those were like. I'm not one with words, but I have a camera.....
The iPhone app used to control the camera on the quad copter. The app is very straight forward with easy to use camera controls and you can set the camera to do all sorts of advanced features, like shooting in RAW or HDR photography. These features make the copter far more than a "toy"!
- I bought some stuff. Considering all the cool items for sale, I managed to escape the show with most of my money still in my pocket. I did break down to purchase two things - the Flixel software and the Promote Control. I am still learning about both and will review them in due time, so stay tuned.
- I hung out with Vincent (again). We'd taken some photos when he'd presented my award to me, but they were in funny colored lighting for the opening ceremony. So when I ran into Vincent at the expo hall, we decided to take 2 and get a normal shot.
- I listened to Julieann Kost preach Photoshop. This woman is truly a wizard with Photoshop - which makes sense as she works for Adobe. What makes her talks so incredible is that she's not only very smart, she's also a talented photographer and instructor. Photoshop is arguably one of the most complicated pieces of software available and widely used today, but Julieann can humanize the software and always teaches me something new!
Julieann Kost delivering a sermon on Photoshop at the Adobe booth. She always draws a big crowd!
This was a great Photoshop World and I'm a little sad that it'll be a few years before I can attend another one due to my upcoming overseas move. Before I sign off, let's review some of today's winning quotes:
- "What am I supposed to do? Bend over and that's going to be my 'natural lighting'?"- Frank Doorhof
- "Good enough is not good enough. Perfect is close" - Vincent Versace
- "Be taken by the photograph, don't take the photograph" - Vincent Versace
Standing with Mr. Vincent Versace - earlier this week I won the Vincent Versace Award for Excellence in Photography, which is obviously named after him.
Stay tuned as later this week I'll dig into a few more of the products I found at Photoshop World and will offer some updated reviews once I've played with them!