Pho­to­shop World 2012 Recap

After miss­ing out on the East Coast event ear­lier this year in D.C., I man­aged to make it out to Las Vegas for Pho­to­shop World 2012 last week. Here’s the short ver­sion. I had a great time catch­ing up with some old friends, met some new friends, and other than the con­cert pre-​con that I wrote about yes­ter­day, my pho­tog­ra­phy con­sisted of tak­ing pic­tures of my hotel toi­let paper using my iPhone.

Old Friends

My buddy Michelle Hed­strom hung out with me for most of the week. We get along well, though my neu­rotic ten­den­cies some­times make her want to kick me upside the head. Brad Moore spot­ted me in the taxi line at the air­port when I arrived and met me with a smile. Patrick LaM­on­tagne descended from Canada to share his wis­dom at the Wacom booth. I always knew those hip­pies in Wash­ing­ton cold never con­trol the bor­der. Jeff Tam­ag­ini was there for our bat­tle of the Timbuk2 bags. His is big­ger, but mine has teeth.

Theresa Jack­sonwon her sec­ond Guru award with a won­der­ful com­pos­ite illus­tra­tion. She was up against some tough com­pe­ti­tion, which I think makes her vic­tory all the more impres­sive. She also joined the con­cert pho­tog­ra­phy pre-​con and came up with a great com­pos­ite for her entry. Brian Mati­ash came with the onOne Soft­ware con­tin­gent and its always a plea­sure to see him. I love his pho­tog­ra­phy and admire the way he’s made it a part of his life. Ana Adamswas there com­pet­ing in the Guru Awards this year. Stop by her site and check out her port­fo­lio. She does some great work with liq­uids and splashes, but there’s also a mojito in there that I need to try.

I met Frank Doorhof last year dur­ing a group excur­sion out to Nel­son. As soon as I arrived, Michelle called me down to Star­bucks and I got to meet with Frank again. What a cool guy. He makes great images and is totally down to Earth. I can’t for­get Alan Hess. He’s been a friend since I first met him at the con­cert pre-​con a cou­ple of years ago. He cre­ates some stun­ning con­cert and event images and, like Frank, he’s laid back and easy to get along.

Mak­ing New Friends

Although I’ve been to Pho­to­shop World about a half dozen times before, this was the first time I got to meet Kale­bra Kelby. What a won­der­ful and gra­cious per­son. Scott Kelby mar­ried well. Because of Kalebra’s cir­cle of friends, I also got to meet folks like Roni Del­monico, Onnie Hull and Steve Kalman. We’ve all traded mes­sages online for a while, so it was very nice to meet in per­son and dis­cover these folks are even bet­ter than I already sus­pected. This social aspect is one of the things that I truly enjoy about Pho­to­shop World, and it’s also why I only took a few snap­shots with my iPhone instead of hit­ting the town with my gear. I can always go back and take more pho­tos, but I didn’t want to miss time hang­ing out with these fine folks.

This was also my first chance to meet up with Pete Collins. I’ve met a few of the Pho­to­shop Guys before and always found them warm and engag­ing. Pete fits right in with that descrip­tion. I got to sit in his class on com­posit­ing issues and every­thing he said finally res­onated in a way I could under­stand (no small feat). Pete had a smile when­ever I saw him, so I almost named my puppy after him. Almost.

Peo­ple I Didn’t Meet

I man­aged to attend a class by Lind­say Adler that I enjoyed very much. She did a won­der­ful job of shar­ing how to get inspi­ra­tion for your pho­tog­ra­phy from other sources, inter­est­ing props or other ele­ments to include in your pho­tos, or other things that iden­tify with your sub­ject. More than that, she made a strong case for set­ting your images apart with impact. Many of those issues were things I’ve con­sid­ered in the past, but she tied them together by giv­ing real exam­ples of how she made images at very lit­tle expense, or per­haps with some barter. I’ve been a bit frus­trated with my own por­traits lately because there was a gap between what I could envi­sion and what I could get to make it hap­pen. Her exam­ples showed me that it’s not as hard as I thought to get some of these ele­ments to make some very com­pelling pho­tos. I would have loved to dis­cuss it in depth with her, but I let it go because I fig­ured I’d come across is a stalker. Then again, there were a cou­ple of times I turned around to find Joe McNally stand­ing right behind me, so maybe I’m over-​thinking this stalk­ing business.

At any rate, I got a lot out of Lindsay’s class and now I’m look­ing for some oppor­tu­ni­ties to put her infor­ma­tion to work.

My Theme for Pho­to­shop World 2012

You can prob­a­bly guess — my atten­tion was on peo­ple over every­thing else this year. The show itself was flaw­less for me. I didn’t have any com­plaints or issues. The classes were what I expected and needed. Although I brought a lot of gear to go out and take some shots, it just never felt like a pri­or­ity over enjoy­ing the won­der­ful com­pany of the peo­ple around me. I’ve had some rough times this year and this was exactly the kind of break from real­ity that I needed. With that in mind, I’d like to say thank you to my old friends and new ones (includ­ing every­one I didn’t men­tion), and hello to all the folks I’ll meet next time around in Orlando.

All of the folks I men­tioned here are won­der­ful peo­ple. Get to know them!