My Pho­to­shop World 2012 Plans

You know what just got me think­ing about my Pho­to­shop World 2012 plans? A friend of mine was just lament­ing that she wants to go, but can’t because of con­flict­ing sched­ules at work. Sucks to be her! (sorry, Denise!) I’m going.

Every­thing is in place. I have my con­fer­ence reg­is­tra­tion in hand. My flight is set and I have a room reserved at Man­dalay Bay with a Strip view. With any luck, I may get a decent shot through the win­dow. If I don’t, it’s OK. I’ve already done that shot from the Foun­da­tion Room and MIX Lounge.

Pho­to­shop World 2012 — Monday

I’m fly­ing from Orlando to Las Vee­gas — via Birm­ing­ham. Why the hell do I want to stop in Birm­ing­ham? I don’t, but my air­line does and it means I get into town about 4:00pm. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been to Birm­ing­ham before. Has any­one been to Birmingham?

I’m not sure why the plane stops at the air­port when it lands close enough to taxi up to Man­dalay Bay. A few folks I know invited me to join them with the LV Adobe Users, but I’m going to skip it. I’ll have plenty of time to talk about Pho­to­shop dur­ing the week and I don’t care for the restau­rant they chose. Instead, I’ll ven­ture over to Pink Taco (top photo) at Hard Rock Hotel for din­ner. There’s a chance I may even have a quick shoot with a model. A friend moved from Orlando to Las Vegas, but I’ll have see how her sched­ule works out.

Pho­to­shop World 2012 — Tuesday

I didn’t sign up for a pre-​conference course this time, so the day­time is fairly open for me. I’ll start at Four Season’s restau­rant for break­fast with my friend Michelle. I invited her down there last year and I think she liked it. Break­fast at the other places inside Man­dalay Bay just doesn’t match, but you pay a bit more for it. When­ever the booths open to grab my con­fer­ence stuff, I’m there.

Tues­day evening is a dif­fer­ent mat­ter, though. There’s a NAPP Forum din­ner at Burger Bar about 5:30 or 6:00. Then I’m off with some friends for a top-​secret event at 8:00 that may involve some choco­late. After that, I may do some shoot­ing on the Strip and meet with the Arch­duke of Austria.

If you’re look­ing for other events on Tues­day, there are a cou­ple of photo walks that could be fun. I think Brian Mati­ash plans to lead one dur­ing the day and Gabriel Bider­man leads one at night.

The PSW Tweetup is a big party that gen­er­ally hap­pens on the Pre-​Con night. I remem­ber this because the folks who go on the Safari with Moose & Joe always come in a bit late. Erik Valind usu­ally brings along some lights and takes pho­tos, there’s a bar, and mostly just a lot of folks get­ting to see each other again. It’s a fun party and if it’s still going when I fin­ish my top secret event and the meet­ing with the Arch­duke of Aus­tria, I’ll drop by there. If that party is already over, then I’ll look for some friends to join me at one of the casino bars (per­haps Eye­Candy) to play another round of “Guess Who’s the Prostitute.”

Pho­to­shop World 2012 — Wednesday

The con­fer­ence starts in earnest today. Another break­fast at Four Sea­sons and then I’m off to the Keynote. It’s gen­er­ally a repeat of the one in the Spring, but I wasn’t at Pho­to­shop World in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. this year. That makes it a new show for me.

My class sched­ule is always up for change, but I will prob­a­bly spend a fair amount of time in Light­room courses — mostly to bring those skills up to the same level as my Aper­ture expe­ri­ence for my Aper­ture vs Light­room blog. Even if I think I know the major topic, the train­ers always have tips and insights that I find very help­ful. It could be a lit­tle known fea­ture of the pro­gram or maybe a warn­ing about some­thing that isn’t the best tool to use. Those are the lit­tle gems that often give me the most value at a Pho­to­shop World course.

With that in mind…

10:45 — 11:45am: Light­room 4 Crash Course w/​Matt Kloskowski

12:00 — 1:00pm: Light­room Cat­a­logs & Col­lec­tions w/R.C. Concepcion

The Expo Floor opens at 1:00pm, but I know damn well I’m going to be hun­gry. I’ll find who­ever is up for lunch and then hit the Expo Floor after­ward to check out what­ever is cool. The only excep­tion is if I hear about some amaz­ing deal that’s only avail­able for the first few peo­ple who get to the floor. Some­times ven­dors do stuff like that, but most likely I’ll be enjoy­ing a nice meal and try­ing to decide what to do for the last course of the day.

6:15 — 7:15pm Hol­ly­wood Effects w/​Corey Barker

Right now, I’m lean­ing toward this ses­sion. Corey does amaz­ing work and I’d like to see what I can learn. How­ever, I’m also curi­ous about Joe Glyda’s course on com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­phy tips.

I’ll be at the After-​Hours Party inside the House of Blues that evening with a thou­sand of my new best friends. It won’t be hard to find me. I’ll be the guy try­ing to do con­cert pho­tog­ra­phy with an iPad because that upsets the peo­ple who take it seriously.

Once the party is over, then I can go catch some beads out on the casino floor.

Pho­to­shop World 2012 — Thursday

Thurs­day morn­ing — say it with me, folks — break­fast at Four Season’s. After that, it’s a full day of courses. Here’s what I have in mind so far.

8:15 — 9:15am: I’ve seen most of the ses­sions here that inter­est me, so this may be break­fast time.

9:30 — 10:30am: The Cre­ative Com­pos­ite w/​Julieanne Kost

10:45 — 11:45am: Great Por­traits: More Than Just Good Light­ing w/​Helene Glassman

12:00 — 1:00pm: Cre­ative Retouch­ing Effects for Por­trait and Fash­ion Pho­tog­ra­phy w/​Lind­say Adler

4:45 — 5:45pm: Com­posit­ing Using the “Lens” Sys­tem w/​Pete Collins

6:00 — 7:00pm: Become a Mar­ket­ing Genius w/​Joel Grimes

That’s a pretty long day. You spend most of your time sit­ting down in a dark room. Some­one could make a for­tune if they opened a con­ces­sion with caf­feinated bev­er­ages near the class­rooms. Why is the caf­feine always so far away? I should remem­ber that for my com­ments on the feed­back form.

Are there more events on Thurs­day evening? You bet. There’s a pre­sen­ta­tion from some great pho­tog­ra­phers about 8:00 and there’s Mid­night Mad­ness later in the evening. I’m not going to either one, though. I’ve vis­ited them both in the past, so I’ll be look­ing for some­thing else to do. There’s a group of folks who hit In-​n-​Out Burger after Mid­night Mad­ness. I’ve always missed out on that. Come to think of it, I’ve never even been to that place. I was in the park­ing lot on my last trip in Feb­ru­ary and still didn’t get inside. Maybe I’ll try to go ear­lier in the evening.

Most likely, I’ll look for a few friends who aren’t tied up in other events and see if we’re all up for din­ner somewhere.

Pho­to­shop World 2012 — Friday

Last day of the con­fer­ence, so it’s impor­tant to start with a good break­fast at Four Season’s!

This day is going to be a bit of a crap­shoot for me. My mind tells me the smart thing to do is to sit in the Light­room track for all four ses­sions. Even so, I’m tempted to visit Live Sports Action Photo Shoot with Dave Black. Part of that is just to see what hap­pens with the ath­lete. I admire peo­ple who do things that I can’t. Also, Dave is a won­der­fully engag­ing instruc­tor and I haven’t selected any of his courses yet. At the same time, I’m inter­ested in Get­ting Started in Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­phy with Moose Peter­son. Not because I want to do Wildlife pho­tog­ra­phy, but just because I think Moose is awe­some and a great pho­tog­ra­pher. Again, I don’t have any of his courses on my sched­ule yet.

That brings up one of the tor­ments of Pho­to­shop World. They have some won­der­ful instruc­tors and I enjoy their pre­sen­ta­tion as much as the infor­ma­tion they share. I’ve sat through a few of Joe McNally’s classes on light­ing with small flash and the big guns more than once. I pretty much know what he’s going to show, but he just shows it so well. It’s a fun and engag­ing ses­sion. That means I have to decide between reliv­ing some fun times or break­ing out into a new area. Corey Barker has an inter­est­ing class called Cre­at­ing Opti­cal Effects that would be new for me. Will I need to visit Terry White’s class on Import­ing & Man­ag­ing Images in Light­room 4, or will that already be cov­ered in some of the classes I’ll take on Wednesday?

Like I said, it’s a crap­shoot. I’ll talk to peo­ple and ask ques­tions. Although it helps me to have a plan when I go to Pho­to­shop World, I also like to remain flex­i­ble and switch classes if it suits me. It’s a good prob­lem to have, though.

Absent Friends

If only Ken Toney could be there. He’ll have to send another pho­to­graph to rep­re­sent his spirit.

After all, every­one loves Ken.