Started off the last day of PhotPlus (sniff…) with Rick Sammon. Interesting talk about portrait photography, particularly when mixed with traveling to different places. Lots of travel tips and portraiture tips, especially focusing on how to do things ‘on the road’ i.e. when you can’t just leg it down to B&H and pick up the exact 27 1/2 inch triple folded shoot through umbrella that you need. Interesting to note that this was the first talk that focused a fair bit more on ‘technical details’, and the questions reflected that…

On a whim, I then went to see John Harrington. I was trying to see how I know him, and realised that because I (recently) discovered the joys of Google Reader, I hardly ever go to anyone’s actual sites anymore. Anyway, I googled him to find the ‘front’ of the blog – he has a lot of useful ‘soft’ information about the photography business, like tips on SEO especially, and other businessy nuggets. Looks like he’s also doing ‘Day 1… day 2…esque blog entries on PhotoPlus.

John was talking at the LiveBooks stand about SEO, and had a number of good tips about getting exposure through the ‘big 3′… Google, MSN Live Search and Yahoo. Also did a demo of Google Analytics. Might do a dedicated blog on this at some point – it’s an interesting tool – if you haven’t already seen it / implemented it, I’d suggest you take a look! In a nutshell, it lets you add a simple tag to your website, and then allows it to track a bunch of stuff… so in a pretty cool interface, you can tell, for example, that 3 people from New Zealand, using FireFox viewed page X on your site, and were referred through Y link to it. There’s heaps more to it though – just take a look at the product tour on the link above.

Urm… disclaimer – I can already feel this post getting out of hand. If your standing, sit. If you’re sitting, recline.

Anyway. Next up was another freebie. Actually failed on my homework with this one, but luckily came across it by accident. Vincent Laforet – talking about his photos and some of the stories behind them, including ‘behind the scenes’ stuff. 30 minutes of interesting stories, and another look at his pretty awesome photo collection. His aerial stuff is inspiring, and his ‘Play magazine’ series (under ‘Sports’) is genius. All in all, a great photographer. Only downfall is a website niggle… when you go to his website, it’ll re-size your window to how it wants to. I think that’s my pet peeve of photography websites. Anyway, still definitely worth a visit. And add his blog to your checklist too.

The last event of the day… and of the whole expo for me, was the ‘How to break into Lifestyle/Travel Photography’ panel. It was vaguely similar to a seminar I went to at ‘Shoot! the day’ event in NYC. Some things discussed were similar, but I got a lot more useful information out of the talk, and actually found myself taking notes. Probably a first for me, in any kind of meeting. Normally if I’m understanding then I’m remembering, but there was so much useful resource-type information flitting around the room that I needed something to help me out.

Really useful insights into what it’s like being a travel photographer, how each panel member got into the gig, and importantly, what the views of a photo editor are. Lots of tips on how to apply for an assignment in travel/lifestyle, and how to position yourself in whatever you’re doing now to make you more marketable to a travel magazine photo editor. Lots of the questions produced useful hints on how to put together a portfolio too, a lot of which could be applied to any speciality.

Ok, so the short post totally didn’t work out. Anyway, it’s been a great 3 days: 6 subway trips to/from the Javits Centre, 12 events attended, 20 photographers listened-to, tens of booths visited, and gallons of ideas and information absorbed!

Friday at PhotoPlus seemed even longer and more exhausting. Another full day of absorbing information, as well as a 20 block walk with 7x (8 foot by 2 foot) Styrofoam sheets for Halloween costumes – and that was before I even got to the convention centre…

So first up today was a talk about ‘Photographing the Presidential Campaign’. An open access ‘keynote’ talk – with a moderator and 4 contributors. Was an interesting talk – a lot for the pictures, and a lot for the changing point of view of the campaigns in terms of how access has to the candidates has diminished.

Next up was Jay Maisel (the link is actually to an interview with Jay Maisel, because his actual website seems to be constantly under construction). This guy was really fascinating. I’ve come across him after seeing a few of his photos, but also when I was looking for local photo workshops. Sadly his workshops don’t quite fall into my budget, but his reputation made me attend his presentation on Friday.

His talk was definitely not the regular photographer-presentation. It was more like a visual workout. The talk was called ‘Light, Gesture and Colour’… fine, ok – before I see all the comments, it was called ‘Light, Gesture and Color’. Anyway, he started off with showing us how there’s a picture in everything – almost like optical illusions. He demonstrated how the eye perceives things, how it can be tricked, and how to use that to make an interesting photo. The whole presentation really made people think, and showed how there’s a photo everywhere – he showed us a picture of a white arrow on a red background. Then he told us how it was on every FedEx van. Taught us how to notice things that some people might normally miss.

He’s also a huge fan of winging it – as in ‘take your camera everywhere’. Whilst I’m pretty sure I’d never keep up with that, I can see his point. There’s always something happening and for a lot of those things, it’ll only happen once. ‘Keep an open mind’ was another theme – if you go out to shoot one specific thing, you’ll probably miss something else amazing. I try to keep an open mind when shooting – like the picture at the top of this post – I actually went out to take photos of the sand/estuary/sunrise in the sky that day – but on the way back to the hotel after packing up all my stuff, I came across the rusty boat*.

Next up was Joe McNally. I know, I know, I’ve only just seen him, and I’m in danger of becoming a stalker, but this presentation sounded different, and it was. Even though there were (I think) more people than the Adorama talks, it somehow seemed more intimate. Gone was the walk-through of the photos, and In was the direct questions to all of us – right at the beginning of the 2 hours – asking what we’d like to hear / do. Was really a good way of starting a presentation, and we effectively ‘drove’ the presentation. Learned a bunch of new stories from him, and a load of detail about how the magazine world works. As usual he had everyone laughing out loud at some points, and his frankness and honesty with everyone was really refreshing in such a ‘public’ presentation.

That was the end of the single presentations, then at 5.45 I headed into ‘Double Exposure’ – with Elliott Erwitt and Alec Soth. To be honest, I’ve never really registered Elliott Erwitt’s name, so I had no clue what he’d done. At the end of the evening, I realised that his images were genius!! and I’d actually seen a number of them before. Do a google images search for ‘Elliott Erwitt’ and check out the jumping dog, and the ‘boots’ pictures that come up. How does he make dogs jump? He BARKS at them. Makes ‘em jump. Of course he does. Despite having the flu, and coming on stage wearing a surgical mask, his answers to the questions were insightful and a lot of them were pretty funny. Very dry guy…. (UPDATE… PDN have done an article on the talk here… worth a read to get a better view!)

Anyway… that was a long day two. Sorry about the long post!

*Yes, that is indeed the tenuous link between this post, and the picture at the
top of the post. Glad you noticed!

The highlight of the day? PLATON. This guy was great. Not that I’m biased or anything, what with him being a Brit ‘n all. Not only were his pictures unique, but his presentation and delivery were emotional. I was going to say ‘great’ or ‘awesome’, but that doesn’t really convey the whole spectrum. I was laughing my head off at some points, and then really moved at other points. I won’t go into too much detail on the stories here in case I spoil it for anyone planning on seeing him soon, but trust me, it’s entertaining and inspiring.

The two hours of presentation whizzed by – from his story about the Putin picture (the link actually goes to the Strobist site which has a brief article about the picture and a link to the World Press Photo interview) where he attempted to befriend the President with a question about the Beatles – to his Dustin Hoffman story, where they all land up calling Platon’s mum during the shoot.

To be honest, I had heard about him for a few famous photos, including the Putin photo, but otherwise had only come across him now and again. Most recently, I noticed in Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama, where Powell talks about one of the pictures taken by him. Platon talked about the photo in his presentation, along with the other ones from that series.

One of the things that struck me about the presentation was that it wasn’t about the equipment. In fact that was noticeable the whole day. Downstairs in the seminars, the photographers were talking about techniques and methods, regardless of equipment. Upstairs in the expo, the exact opposite with huge displays of telescope like lenses, and a free 50lb bag of brochures for every attendee! We were all either photographers, or interested in photography, and yet there was only really one direct question about equipment, and it kinda sounded out of place. Point was that we were all more interested in the methods, the thoughts, the process behind the photos, rather than what lens, what f stop and what lighting plan.

Later in the day, was Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, and Michael Grecco. The latter, you’ll find mentioned in my about page – I’ve just recently finished reading his book, and was very impressed! It’s one of those ones where you hate to finish it – full of inspirational photos and the stories behind them. Kinda like the ‘Moment It Clicks’ book by Joe McNally. Oh btw, if you’re reading this somewhere where you’d be worried, there’s some NSW (not safe for work!) stuff on both of those sites, but relatively safe – Timothy Greenfield-Sanders did a project documenting porn stars. Nuff said. Michael Grecco also did a project called ‘Naked Ambition’. It’s ‘R’ rated, but it’s not got ‘naked’ in the title for nothing! Both speakers were really great – Michael Grecco was a full 2 hour presentation so learned a lot from that one too.

Also kicked myself today that I just missed Scott Kelby. He did a brief write-up of his day here. Spoke to the guys at the PeachPit booth, and they said that that was it… no second appearance on Friday or Saturday. doh!

Going back tomorrow – Jay Maisel and Joe McNally are on the schedule!

Went to another ‘Evening with Joe McNally’ talk and demo last Thursday in New York. Sat down a couple of mins early and looked at the workshop calendar leaflet in front of me. Was a bit surprised to see a picture of me staring back at me on the top of the page. The pic was taken at the last ‘Evening with Joe McNally’ I went to back in May. It was so good, and such good value that I went again last week. Ok, so the pic didn’t really include my face… and I was pretty much obscured entirely… anyway… red arrow = me, green arrow = Joe McNally….

The workshops at Adorama are pretty cool – this one was only 3 and a bit hours, but for $25, which includes getting a $25 voucher to use at Adorama, it’s incredible value. It’s also Joe McNally – an excellent speaker / entertainer / stand-up comedian. If you haven’t seen him speak, or are wondering if it’s worth doing a workshop with him, I would definitely sign up if you have the opportunity!

The workshop started with Joe talking through some of his previous work, and some of his new work – which included the recent ‘Last of the Neanderthals‘ cover image and article. Joe McNally is definitely one of those unusual photographers who are good at both presenting and entertaining.

After a break, there were some technical hitches – gotta love technology – all were dealt with calmly (threaten camera/laptop with impending death), and then a demonstration on setting up a portrait shoot from nothing. Started with the subject in room light, then added a flash (on camera) then added off-camera flash, then progressed through umbrella-use, positioning, diffusers and c-stands. Finished up with a great shot, and the ‘learning’ process as we went through the whole sequence was well worth the evening.

UPDATE… the man himself has an update on his blog, including the pictures that he took during the demonstration – see Joe McNally’s blog entry here. Enjoy!