Monday, March 21, 2011

Photo Workshop Survey

But first... has anyone been tuning into the new Kelby show, “The Grid”? It’s on live on Mondays at 12:30 noon, but I’ve missed it each time. A day later, it’s up on their site or iTunes (feh. Ptui, ptui).
The first one, two weeks ago, was entertaining and fun to watch. The one last week was really interesting. They talked about DSLR HD Video and I’ll let you watch it to see what they said; but they also talked about HDR and that was interesting. RC Concepcion pointed out that the real problem with HDR is that a lot of it out there is badly done. And that there’s a lot of post-processing to be done after you’ve created it and tweaked it. At one point they talked about it being a fad and I almost shouted out loud that Ansel Adams invented it, then RC said, “and guess who invented it? Ansel Adams!” I had that written in my HDR presentation BEFORE watching this. Ask Bob Fowler! We talked about it at a club meeting weeks ago!

They said a lot of good things about NIK HDR Efx Pro. Guess I have to add it to my shopping list. I'm waiting for my Humber College Staff ID so I can get my educational discount...

Go watch the Grid. Here: http://kelbytv.com/thegrid/. Episode 3 should be up there tomorrow, and they’re talking about microstock (Les..)

You don’t have to be a NAPP member to watch it. You really should be one, though: use this link if you’re thinking about joining.

I'm preparing some multi-part content for my technical post that will be directed at people who want to try some HDRs but don't know how to get started. It's not really difficult but you need to understand some basic concepts. I expect that will be ready, at least the first part, within this week. Stay tuned!

Photography Workshops

I've mentioned several times that we're working on some potential photography workshops and/or destination trips. Who's "we"?

Well I'm one of 'we'. I have some colleagues with whom I'm working, people who have considerable experience and skill sets both as photographers and as educators. We are like-minded: we think that we have a lot to offer to photographers of all levels, and that we can put together teams to present valuable sessions.

We have some ideas about what we'd like to do, but it would be really helpful to find out what our potential customers want. So to that end, I've put together a quick survey that should take you only a few minutes to complete. Please take a second to fill it out. Answer as many or as few questions as you wish.

PLEASE be honest. I know how tempting it is to be humourous or engage in wishful thinking, but we really would like to develop some workshops based on your responses.

We will NOT record your email addresses nor contact you because you filled out the survey, unless you want us to (one question is, "should we contact you?")

One of the questions on the survey asks if you know anyone else who might be interested in a workshop. We're particularly interested in finding out if there are as many people out there as we think there are, who have gotten into digital photography and have no idea how to use that nice DSLR they just bought. So should we run a basic course for these people?

Again, please take a moment to answer a couple of questions for us. Here's the link to the survey:


Have you ever known me NOT to put a picture up in a blog post? I can't set a precedent here! I've been rather busy the past week or so, what with writing the presentation on HDR which has now been cancelled, and with one of my rites of spring for the past 10 years, which is re-certifying as a motorcycle instructor at Humber College (take the course. You will love it. You may never own a bike or you may catch the fever! Go to the Humber website for more info. And if you sign up, tell them where you heard about it!).

But every month on the NAPP forums, there's a challenge, called the "Photo Rally". Someone -- the winner from the previous month -- chooses 3 categories. You have 72 hours to shoot a picture in all three and submit them. This month's categories were, "Keys", "Patterns in Nature", and "Things that Stick". I won't bother showing you my 'patterns' shot because I hate it, but here's the other two.
 



"Things that Stick". That's Maple Syrup!
 
The forums are another reason to join NAPP. Where else can you get the kind of advice that you can from this great community. You can view the forums here but you can't post anything if you're not a member. Look in the "Digital Photography" forum for the Photo Rally but browse through the other ones!

In anticipation of the upcoming series of HDR posts on the technical blog, you may be interested in reading this commentary.

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