Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Peoria Supershoots 2008 (is now over)


This weekend was a Supershoots(.com/.net) event. The event was a complete success in the fact that, well, I had a lot of fun! I didn't shoot as much as I usually do since I was helping others with their cameras/posing/lighting/etc...

The event started Saturday morning at 9am, but all of the mentors arrived Friday during the day. We met up that Friday night, had some drinks, hung out at our home, played some drums, and was in bed by midnight.

Saturday went really well. I would have to say that the group attending was mostly full of people who really did want to learn more about photography. Sometimes you get those "one" guys (or girls) who are there for other various reasons, but I don't care to expand on that.
I spent the entire day on one high key set. If I had a gun then, I wouldn't be writing this post today. Though, I was proactive in working on my posing skills. Not "my" posing skills, but my ability to pose other people. Well, maybe somewhat my posing skills since I have found 'doing' a pose works better than 'explaining' a pose. It's somewhat queer, but non-verbal communication works very well in communicating with a model. Saturday ended at a Mexican restaurant in Peoria where I got to have great conversation with Jeff and his wife (Her name slips me).

Sunday started at 9 am with me teaching a digital retouching session. I arrived at 9:10. I'm so awesome. Anyhow, I took this session a different route than I have before. This time I asked for a few images from the attendee's to use as my example(s) in digital retouching. I would usually use my own, but what a better way to teach by putting myself on the spot and showing how I would approach retouching an image. I figured that the less "unknowns" during the entire process the better everyone could understand it. All of the techniques that I used were proprietary to Photoshop and very simple. I believe that the session went extremely well and that everyone walked away a better retoucher then before. I heard several "ohhs" and "ahhs" during the session, so I'm basing my information off of that. Well, and of the several attendee's that spoke to me personally afterwards with great appreciation. Thanks for that guys.
Sunday ended at Mings Chinese restaurant with many many laughs.

At the top is Kalleigh. She had a great persona in front of the camera and had no issues with going outside the box to create some great shots. This was my first time ever working with her, but it didn't feel that way.