Monday, June 15, 2009

Quick Hit Monday: Upcoming Photography Workshops; Lighting Tutorials; Top 10 Wedding Photogs; & Publishing Your Own Book - Really

Good Morning Everybody,
Well, we had a pretty lazy weekend and spent most of the time taking care the loose ends that have accumulated over the last several weeks. This week get back to work. I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things at the studio. At least the day-to-day pace should slow down just a bit since were not traveling the four cities each week.

I checked my notes and thought, "Wow, We got a lot of stuff to cover a Quick Hit Monday." So, let's get right to it.

Upcoming Photography Workshops
Hey folks, I wanted to let you know about the upcoming Kentucky Professional Photographers Association - KPPA - summer meeting coming up next weekend June 21, 22, 23. We have another great lineup of talent including Michael and Tina Timmons. Michael was named Mideast States Photographer of the Year this past January. I have to say that his work was awesome. Hit this link and scroll to the bottom of the page to see what I talking about - you will be blown away!

The association is also trying something new at the Summer Conference. There are five of us going to break out all the attendees into smaller groups for a hands-on shooting workshop experience. You have an opportunity to learn in-studio lighting or working with babies and children or working with seniors, finding the light or creating the perfect image. This is an excellent learning opportunity with some of the BEST in a really small group setting. I'm looking forward to the meeting . This is one not to miss -- I hope to see lots of you there. Here is the link to all the KPPA information.

Top 10 Wedding Photogs Just Named By American Photo For 2009
Congrats and high fives to my blogging buddy Matt Adcock. His wedding studio, Del Sol [link] -along with Matt was named one of the top 10 wedding studios in the country by American Photo magazine. I guess I must have been #11 and just missed the list again ;~)
Anyway, here is the link to the story and the other 9 wedding photogs.
Matt also runs FlashFlavor.com and features several the images from his wedding shoots on the site. David Hobby, the Strobist, also features much of Matt's work as well [link].
CONGRATULATIONS!!

Quantum Lighting Tutorials
I was cruising the net last week looking for some links to Friday's post entitled "Party Shadows [link]." Quantum, as you know is my equipment choice when it comes to the off-camera flash. As I mentioned in Friday's post I prefer their Quantum T5d flash and their FreeWire radio receivers and transmitters.

Anyway, while cruising their site I saw that they had several tutorials on how to get the most out of their equipment. They are posted under "QFlash Academy" - here is the link. They are up to a grand total of 10 right now and they are all professionally produced by my good buddy Will Crockett. If you're a quantum user or considering picking up some quantum gear for your off-camera flash, I recommend a peek at those tutorials.

More Lighting Tutorials
Another site I like to check from time to time is entitled Lighting-Essentials.com. They have a lot of solid information on the site and it's nice to make the occasional visit to see what's new. Check out this link right here to an excellent tutorial on how to balance off camera flash and ambient lighting for portraiture outdoors. We cover a lot of these techniques right here at DigitalProTalk but sometimes it's nice to have just a different perspective. I invite you to take a cruise over to Lighting-Essentials.com and check out their site -- it's a nice visit.

Shooting Tethered With the Canon 5D Mark II
I was all over my Google Reader this weekend since I had a little extra time to kill. Boy, that's a statement that sure hasn't worked into my vocabulary for quite a while. Anyway, once in a while I like to visit is John Nack's site - John Nack On Adobe [link]. I've mentioned John's site previously many times and I still like to stop by just to see what he's up to when it comes to anything Photoshop and Adobe.

One of his links lead to another and before long I was over Lightroom-News.com reading how to shoot tethered with my Canon 5D Mark II. I've done this many times at my Photoshop World Pre-Con meetings but have always used the Canon software and Canon's radio transmitter to accomplish the job. By the way I love the new transmitter for the Canon 5D Mark II [link]. What makes this tutorial fascinating is that it goes through the steps to show you how to shoot tethered and go right into Lightroom.

There are not many of us doing these kind of things but for those of us that are this article is a nice resource on the subject. Here is the link.

Time To Publish Your First Book
Okay, this is a rather interesting round-about way I stumbled upon this website. Many of you know that I'm on Twitter under DigitalProTalk but I haven't "tweeted" very often since I'm still figuring out how to best use it for DigitalProTalk. Anyway, I checked over at my account at Twitter and found some "tweets" by my friend and fellow blogger, Neil Creek. Neil and I are both contributors to FineArtPhotoBlog [link]. He had "tweeted" about his new book having just been published over at issuu.com I headed over to check it out and found out, as expected, that it was very well done.
Well, one thing led to the other and before long I was all over issuu.com site checking out what they were up to. Issuu.com is a fascinating proposition for anyone wanting to publish books -- any kind of books -- including a wedding album books.

The site literally lets you upload any PDF file as a single page or a double page document. The use of a clever flash applet makes turning the book pages a nice presentation of images.

LaDawn and I ran some quick tests over the weekend with the software that we use to create our wedding albums. The software lets us save out our multi-page albums as PDFs. I think you can see where I'm going. With the album saved out as a PDF, we can easily upload it to issuu.com and share the album design not only with our bride and her family but any bride who happens to be visiting our website or blog.

I mention this site today because I think it's one of those sites that once we study a bit more deeply, we will find that it offers a lot of interesting possibilities both in featuring our photography and marketing our studio. I invite you to head over to issuu.com [link] and check it out. Rest assured, you're going to hear more about issuu.com from me in the near future.

Wait, There's More
Just when you've seen it all, somebody comes up with a brand-new phone app for the iPhone and the iTouch. One of my photo buddies pointed me to this link. It's an app that lets you control your Canon 5D Mark II with your iPhone or your iTouch. Heck, makes me want to rush out right now and pick up the new iPhone. For all you iPhone aficionados, here is the link.

Hey gang that's it for me today. LaDawn and I are sitting down and wrapping up a few more loose ends from the tour, selecting our next grand prize winner, and getting things geared up for the fall segment of my DigitalWakeUpCall tour. Keep your eyes on DigitalWakeUpCall.com because I know LaDawn is planning to start the long process of booking the fall hotel locations for all of our stops along the fall segment. I'll also keep you posted on the progress.

Don't forget to stop in tomorrow for another episode of Technique Tuesday. I think you'll enjoy it. See you then, -- David

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