I have been home from Las Vegas for a few days now. I was there as an instructor for the Photoshop World Conference. If you don’t know what Photoshop World is, you can check it out here: Photoshop World
Now, while I know Photoshop and use it on a daily basis, I was not there to teach Photoshop but to teach Concert Photography. Makes sense since I shoot a lot of concerts, and have even written one of the three books available on the subject. During Photoshop World this time around, I had a pretty great schedule. I taught a pre con, a conference class, gave a talk at the Nik Software booth and presented my event photography at the NAPP theatre on the Expo floor.
The first class was held before the conference officially even started. Along with Scott Diussa, I teach a conference pre con class on concert photography. This class is limited to 40 attendees and along with class room instruction, they get to shoot a live band. This year we had a great contest and some of the attendees have written blog posts describing the class and contest.
- Here is the post from William Beem, whose image made it to the top three. How to Lose a Photo Contest
- Here is the post from Theresa Jackson, who went on to win her second Guru award. Concert Photography Precon
The setup is same each time, we do some classroom stuff, go shoot a live band and then go back and talk about post processing. It’s a simple formula but it works. During the live shoot, the attendees get to shoot 3 full songs, then Scott and I go over what we saw on the stage. The thing is that since the concert takes place on the keynote stage and the theme changes each year, the concert is never the same. The lighting is never the same, the stage is never the same, just like walking into a real world shoot. The one thing that has always been the same is the band. They rock. They give us great emotion, great expressions, great moments and they sound awesome. Might seem like a small thing but they are basically playing to large empty room and 40 photographers. That’s not an easy task.
After the pre con was over, it was time for a little dinner and then a meet up with some friends. Scott and I then went off to judge the photo contest and let me tell you, it’s a lot harder than you think. We got some great images and really had a hard time narrowing it down to just 3. Then it was time for some sleep. I needed to get up and have the images down to the keynote team before 7am.
That’s early.
The keynote was politically themed and Scott Diussa and I got to be part of it as we had the audience pick the winner from the top three images from the Concert Pre Con. The winner received a new Nikon D800 and lens along with the Ultimate Edition of Nik plugins and a copy of my Concert book. The runners-up got a copy of Nik Silver Efex Pro2 or Nik Color Efex Pro4. Then it was off to some classes.
One of the great extras offered to the Photoshop World attendees is the portfolio reviews. I got to review about 7 different portfolios nd they were all really interesting. There is some really great talent out there.
Day one ended with a party at the House of Blues and while I really wanted to stay out late, I decided to head up to my room after the party to make sure I had a good nights sleep before teaching my class the next morning.
More to come….
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