As some of you know, I’ve spent a great deal of time over the past two weeks attending photography expositions, seminars and gallery shows. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the PDN PhotoPlus Expo in New York City and the Olympus InVision Photo Festival in Bethlehem, PA. They were both fantastic! I would recommend them to any of my photographer friends and I plan on attending them both next year.

New York City…

Two weeks ago when I left for New York I told my wife that I was not taking any camera’s with me and that my only goal was to absorb as much knowledge as I could from all the seminars that I had planned on attending. Well, that’s exactly what I did.

Wednesday, day one of PhotoPlus was put on by Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI). I attended the posing, composition, boudoir and creative seminars given by Bambi Cantrell, Susan Stripling, Jen Rozenbaum and Dane Sanders.

On Thursday, day two, I learned all about flash photography, high end retouching and strategies for winning photo competitions in seminars given by Joe McNally, Carrie Beene and a panel consisting of Allen Murabayashi, Lauren Wendle, Susan Bright and W.M. Hunt. The keynote address was called “An Astronaut’s Guide to Photography in Space”. It was presented by NASA Astronaut Donald Pettit. Although Mr. Pettit was a rather dry speaker his talk and photographs were very interesting!

Friday morning, day three, I attended a fine art digital printing seminar put on by John Paul Caponigro, another keynote address by Mark Seliger. The rest of the day was spent on the trade floor perusing all of the wonderful vendors. Friday night was date night with my daughter and her husband, Jess and Phil. We had dinner at the Breslin Bar & Dining Room and then a few drinks at Maysville, a bourbon bar. It was a very good time!

On Saturday, the last day of PhotoPlus I had to take an early train back home so I was only able to attend one seminar. It was put on by Steve Simon and he called it “The Passionate Photographer: Becoming The Photographer You Want To Be”. Steve had a great message and he was a very good speaker. I walked away with a lot from this talk but one of the interesting technical things he brought up was his method of using Auto ISO, Auto White Balance and Back Button Auto Focus to capture the majority of his images. Very interesting!

On to Bethlehem….

Last Friday I attended the opening of the Pennsylvania Photographers’ Competition in the Crayola Gallery at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem, PA. I have two photographs in this show. See here: InVision. I was happy to see that the opening was very well attended. I had an opportunity to speak with a whole bunch of people about my photos. After the opening I had dinner and spent the night at the Sands Casino Resort Hotel. I don’t gamble but it is very entertaining just watching all the people who do.

After checking out on Saturday morning I headed over to the ArtsQuest building for the Olympus InVision Photo Festival. Throughout the day I attended hour long presentations given by photographers Richard Renaldi, Roxanne Lowitt, Eugene Richards, Oliva Bee and Chase Jarvis. These ranged from very good (Eugene Richards) to awful (Oliva Bee) and everywhere in between.

When the day concluded I left Bethlehem and drove 2 and 1/2 hours to our family summer home, otherwise known as The Cot-Taj-Mahal, along the Juniata River. I know some of you guys are familiar with that piece of real estate. After a long drive I arrived and met my wife, Robrandi and her cray mother Fannie. We talked a bit about the photography seminars, had a few drinks and then retired for the night. Drifting off to sleep, lying in bed next to Robrandi, she asked me, “Now what are you going to do with all your newfound knowledge?” To that I replied, “I’ll figure it out in the morning” …. and I’m still working on it.