Just ordered my first professional lens - the Canon 100-400L. It should be here next week. Now maybe I can start taking good quality "ho-hum" photos while I wait for your seminar so I can learn the "rest of the story"!
You're very kind! While I'm excited about the aviation seminars, I've been thinking a lot about general photography seminars and then stratifying them into different skill levels. Having begun this career from scratch, so to speak, I think there are alot of things I could pass on. A seminar that is for up and coming aspiring photographers that want to turn it into an income producing full time business would be a great area to explore. Another could be for photographers who have no intention of doing it for a living but just want to keep raising the bar in image quality.
One of the benefits of taking the path that I did, that is, not specializing in one area, is the variety of subjects I capture in a month's time. In the last 30 days, I have photographed numerous aircraft on the ground and in flight, sixty crystal awards (Whew! What a pain!!), two CEO's, three business jet interiors, an Arizona landscape image for a billboard ad, and a variety of commercial and residential architecture, oh, and some beautiful Siberian Tigers. There just aren't a great number of photographers that shoot that wide a variety of subjects. The fact that I'm shooting in all those markets regularly gives me a breadth of experience that I think would allow me to help just about anyone mature their photographic effort.
Once we get these first couple of seminars under our belts, I would really like to branch out into different areas and develop seminars that will be interesting informative and fun or a variety of photographer interests. I'd still like to keep the groups around 20 to 25 and have them in all different parts of the country to minimize travel expense for the folks attending. I don't want them to be like the Photoshop seminars where 150 to 200 people sit in a room and there's no quality time, just instruction. Those are fine for that subject, but in ours we're going to be helping people hone their personal style and technique and to do that right, we need to get to know each other better.
The January 26th Dallas seminar is shaping up nicely and it looks like it will be a casual gathering Friday evening, depending upon the number of attendee's we might just all go out for dinner somewhere close by or have something catered at the hotel. Then Saturday will be a classroom day with a possible couple hour side trip to the aforementioned grass strip (very weather conditional) and then a wrap up session with dinner Saturday evening. Depending upon weather and schedules Sunday could be a bonus day.
If any of these ideas sound like something of interest, everyone should feel free to e-mail me to that effect, and where you are photographically and geographically.Then we'll start organizing and putting more seminars together.
I'm excited for you on the 100-400, you'll love it! It's worth every penny. I'm looking forward to our time together!!
Jim, I'm only up to page 12 and just have to say, "Fantastic". You're a gifted and lucky guy. I'll pass this thread on to a friend of mine that owns an old Mustang (car) here in Perth, Western Australia. We were always about to organise a shoot with it and thr P51 that was owned by Bill Wyllie here, but unfortunately it was sold and went east before I got off my a*se :-(
Jim, well, I've finally caught up. A question, what resolution will the screensaver shots be at? I run pretty high res monitors and 1024x768 just won't cut it. That said, I understand why you wouldn't want to run 1920x1080 type images too.
Having caught up, I also would like to say a photobook would be attractive too, as one of the other posters indicated, maybe with the 'story' behind the shot on the facing page.
Finally, I wish I lived in the US so I could go to one of the seminars... Well, not really, it's great here, but you know what I mean. Ever been to Perth? ;-)
Edit: Oh, here are three of my favourites from downunder (nowhere near yours or others, but I am proud of them):
Screensaver images will be 1024 x 768 or a little less for obvious reasons, sorry. Never been to Perth, but I'm sure I'd love it! Nice shots, keep up the good work.
After the Tiger shoot on Saturday we stopped by the hangar to shoot something else that growls. Here's a shot of Tom shooting Trey in the cockpit. Once again,Tom proves the rule that the best shots require you to be in the most uncomfortable positions.
JW
Edited by JWilsonphoto on Sep 10, 2007 at 03:29 PM GMT
I'm looking forward to that! Let's get together again soon and go fly. Arre you planning a Tiger shoot for the Saturday before Christmas? I've got several folks that would be interested, probably about five right now.
Jim if you can get at least 5 or more , I will check with Missy and see if she would let us come out and play that day . Let me know how many you can get for sure.
My Buddy Bryan orchestrated this shot for me yesterday, it helps a great deal to have an art director in the control tower!! A few of our Texas Boys out practicing for the big show, God Bless 'em!
JW
Edited by JWilsonphoto on Sep 10, 2007 at 03:31 PM GMT
Scott Perdue and I are in the final planning stages of our first photo seminar. We're thinking we might limit the size of this first one just so everyone attending feels like they got the personal attention they had hoped for. We're working on equipment, conference room size and amenities to try to make this a great experience right out of the box.
Right now we plan to hold the event at a brand new Hampton Inn in Allen, Texas. Great new facility with a nice conference room and very comfortable amenities for our guests. That being said, we need to get close to a final number of people attending. Looks like the venue will be an informal get together Friday evening and the seminar Saturday. Saturday evening will be a fun gathering going over your favorite images and discussing all manner of things photographic, including what you'd like to see in the next seminar. Depending upon weather, it could be 75 or it could be 40 and blowing here in North Texas, we might take a little trip down the street to a friend's grass strip and shoot some fun airplanes. Some of that depends both on weather and how many people we have attend.
The event begins on the evening of January 26th and Saturday, January 27th.The fee for our forum is still $500.00 and someone will get to ride with scott in AMT.com Extra 300. We have had a number of you respond with reservations to date, anyone else out there interested, just e-mail me at [email protected]. Please include a short description of your photographic skill level, the equipment you're using currently and what you'd like to take home from our get together.
