point....click...shoot

Found this one on Dane Sanders Blog!

http://www.mei500.com/

Where: MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV
When: Sunday, August 16th – Wednesday, August 19th
What: 13 workshops in a classroom style setting
Cost: $279 (which also gets you a free full registration to WPPI 2010 - March 4-11, 2010)
Topics: Style, tools & techniques for mixing photography & video, indoor & outdoor lighting techniques, lightspeed workflow, album design, focusing on your business, web promotion, promotions & location lighting.

Teachers:

• Jerry Ghionis
• Robert Evans
• Jim Garner
• Bambi Cantrell
• Skip Cohen
• Tony Corbell
• Ron Dawson
• Mitche Graf
• Matt Hill
• Kevin Kubota
• Charles & Jennifer Maring
• Ken Sklute
• Dane Sanders

There is even a special MGM room rate of $69 a night for Summer School attendees.

CLICK HERE for all the details!

In a recent post, June 3, 2009, Syl Arena of the Pixsylated blog made this statement:

Today, we are some 30 years short of the bicentennial of photography’s invention. The reign of paper as the delivery medium for photography is collapsing. The Internet has morphed from being the secret realm of academics and soldiers into being the world’s largest public library. Devices like the iPhone and Kindle are replacing books of all types. Now more images are delivered as photons than as droplets of ink. Today’s babies will grow up to remember paper as something they enthusiastically smeared paint on with their fingers in pre-school and little else. Photography is managing to keep pace. Many photographers aren’t.

I have to agree with him, but not just about photography. as many of you know I work in education during the day and it constantly amazes me at how many educators have not kept up with the changing world around them. I'm not blaming those folks nor and I speaking ill of them, all I am saying is that as a whole education has done a poor job of keeping up with the rest of the world.

I will not go into the reasons why i feel this way I will not recount tales of things told or seen I will simple make my observation and move on to the photography.

As a photographer I did once use film, but I have never set foot in a dark room, unless you count the digital one that resides on my laptop. I am old enough to remember film and to have used it. In fact I cut my photographic teeth on a disk camera by Kodak and a Polaroid. Both of which have went the way of the Dodo.
Yeah I remember my disk camera it made things so much easier but finding film when overseas could be a pain as I found out the hard way. At any rate as I grew and as Dad took an interest in photography I dabbled with a camera from Sears and then a Canon and lastly a Nikon. Eventualy i switched to digital and I have not looked back.

Wonder if we still have any disk images left?

These will be tasty in a few days...kids found them growing in the corner of our yard. I just hope the birds leave them alone so I can get a shot when they are ripe. Course once I get the shot they will be gone!

A few weeks back Miguel Olivella, a sports photographer, was featured on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider as a guest blogger. I have to be honest I had never heard of Miguel until that day and I still know little about him other than the images I have viewed on his sight and the post on Photoshop Insider. Despite that though a few of his points rang in my ears and spur me to re-evaluate an approach.

I know what your thinking here he goes changing things again. Well you are right I do reevaluate and change things regularly in my online presence but I see this as a good thing not a bad thing. What I wish to reevaluate though is not my wedding shootings or my portraits but my approach to sports and how I get the word out. I will be upfront I did not start out to become a sports shooter. Not because I think it is beneath me but because I am not a real big sports fan. I am however an action fan and as I started shooting the kids play for their team I really started to dig the challenge of shooting the action. I quickly improved my gear and would like to make more improvements but have held off in order to focus on the weddings/portrait side of the business.

In Miguel's post he made a number of insightful comments about things you need to do and things you need to pay attention to. As I read these I realized that many of them rang true for photography in general not just sports. So below I have a listing of quotes from his post.

• success is the result of 1/3 luck, 1/3 equipment and 1/3 skill/expertise
• what separates the good sports photographer from the rest is the consistent convergence of: 1) anticipating what may happen; 2) having the right equipment in hand; and 3) a bit of luck
• If bad luck rears its ugly head, resign yourself to the fact that it happens to everyone and move on
• get the face and the ball in the frame
• build a portfolio of images and create a website
• do not turn in any image that are not top notch (soft focus, noise, ect) it is far better to turn in a small quantity or really good shots than a disk full of marginal ones
• if you turn in or use marginal images you will be deemed a marginal photographer
• determine ahead of time where you are allowed to be and where you are not allowed to be
  

Moose Peterson and Jake Peterson are taking six folks on this Base Camp trip to one of the best spots in the lower 48 to photograph birds. For details on the trip check out this link: http://www.moosenewsblog.com/texas-bird-base-camp/