A Preview of my Classes at The California Photo Festival

Posted by admin in Blog on September 25, 2012

It’s hard to believe that summer, 2012 is already over! That means two things: 1. That we should get ready to photograph fall color; and 2. The California Photo Festival is right around the corner! If you haven’t signed up yet, you can find the registration page here.

I wanted to give a little sneak peak at what I’ll be teaching:

High Dynamic Range Mastery

 

Part 1:  Wed. Oct. 10 – 10:30 – 11:30 am
Part 2: Wed. Oct. 10 – 1:00 – 2:45 pm

Learn to shoot for and process HDR images using Photoshop, Photomatix and HDR Efex Pro. You’ll learn how to think about the process in the field as well as get the most out of your images using post-processing techniques. Ben has been described as “the godfather of HDR” from the author of the HDR handbook. Come learn his secrets, including what’s essential in stitching HDR panoramas. If you want to shoot with Ben you have to take this session! If you can’t fit into Ben’s shooting sessions, there are plenty of shooting opportunities during the week to practice what Ben is presenting during this session.

Getting Started with Lightpainting

Part 1:  Thurs. Oct. 11 – 1:30 – 3:00 pm
Part 2: Thurs. Oct. 11 – 6:15 – 9:00 pm

Discover how you can start with a dark scene and paint light onto your subject to create some of the most unique images you’ve ever seen. The only light source you’ll need is a common household flashlight to create these masterpieces. Ben will go over his gear, techniques and show a presentation slideshow of his Light Painting examples done over the years.

Panos & Beyond

 

Part 1: Fri. Oct. 12 – 3:30 – 5:00 pm
Part 2: Fri. Oct. 12 – 5:45 – 7:30 pm

Nothing beats the panorama when you want to capture the grand scale of a scene. In this class, you’ll learn how to properly shoot panos, stitch them effectively in Photoshop, and post-process for maximum impact. Then, we’ll take things a few steps further and enter the world of HDR panos. To wrap things up, you’ll learn how to create unique and artistic panollages.


Directing the Viewer’s Eye

Fri. Oct. 12 1:30 – 3:00 pm

Learn to have some influence over where your viewer looks first in your scene as well as where they linger. See how Photoshop can be an effective tool for manipulating your viewer’s experience through simple changes to the brightness, contrast and color of an image. With time for Q&A.


Sunset on the Beach

Wed. Oct. 10 – 5:45 – 6:45 pm

Learn how to think about shooting at sunset so you can get the most out of the detail, color and contrast at this special time of day. Shoot horses running down the beach to produce both silhouetted figures as well as full colorful detail.


Additional Sessions/Extras

Festival Artists Reception
Tues. Oct. 9 – 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Join us for an evening with a few of our guest artists hanging their work at Light Photographic Workshops! Meet and greet with the instructors before the big week and get a preview of one of the best workshop facilities in the world! Doors will open at 6:30PM

The Digital Fine Arts – Panel & Audience Q&A
Sat. Oct. 13th – 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Jane Conner-Ziser will lead a panel discussion on the Digital Fine Arts in 2012 and beyond. Audience questions and participation are highly encouraged.

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Seattle, creativeLIVE, good friends & geekery

Posted by admin in Blog on September 24, 2012

Hey everyone! We just wrapped up yet another week in the Seattle area. (For various reasons, we had decided to extend our stay.) There was a lot going on this week… from meeting friends, to creativeLIVE, to the new iPhone, to hanging out with the “original” technomad. Here’s a summary of our week:

Lesa Snider & creativeLIVE

As you may already know, creativeLIVE is based in Seattle and my great friend Lesa Snider was there teaching her Photoshop Deep Dives classes. We met up with Lesa and her husband, Jay, early in the week and then attended one of her classes. It was great to re-connect with the creativeLIVE gang to start planning some new classes.

Me and Lesa Snider on the set of her creativeLIVE class, Photoshop Deep Dives.

The “Original” Technomad

If you know anything about my lifestyle, you know that I live full-time in a 40-foot tour bus. There are actually a whole group of people who live and work on the road, and we live to call ourselves technomads. This is because we use technology to make our “nomadness” possible. This technomad idea is far from new though. Back in the ’70s, one man kind of started it all, traveling the country on a recumbent bicycle, decked out with loads of cutting edge technology. Decades later, he’s still living a nomadic lifestyle, now on a sailboat he’s in the process of “teching out.” This is Steven Roberts, and you can check out his life HERE. Steven was docked on the San Juan Islands, which isn’t far from Seattle, so I ventured up there for a day and spent some time “geeking out” with the original technomad.

The two photos above show me and Steven with his sailboat, Nomadness.

Karen forced me to include this photo. I got this iPhone photo of Steven’s boat when his little feline travel partner decided to photobomb the shot. Karen gave it the funky oil paint look.

Exploring Whidbey Island

Later in the week, Karen and I met up with our friend Peggy, who we originally met during my Iceland workshop back in June. Peggy lives in the area and took us exploring on the nearby Whidbey Island. The weather was pretty overcast and the light was dead but we still had a great time exploring and reminiscing on all our Iceland adventures. One of the greatest things about workshops like that is the new friends you make.

Karen got this shot of me on Whidbey Island. We stopped to shoot in this little town called Coupeville.

Peggy, Karen and I have dinner at an excellent little place in Coupeville called Christopher’s. If you’re ever in the area, we HIGHLY recommend this place. We all loved our meals and their caprese salad was just mouthwatering (and huge).

More Seattle explorations

Saturday was our last day in the Seattle area, so Karen and I went exploring one last time. We took an hour-long harbor cruise, which circled the harbor while a tour guide narrated the trip. It was a beautiful day, and the boat was a lot of fun. Afterwards, we went on the new ferris wheel that’s right on the water. At 175 feet tall, we got some nice views of the city. If you ever want to give it a shot, it’s $13./per person.

Karen and I ride the “Great Wheel” in Seattle.

After moving on from Seattle, we’re going to be exploring North Cascades National Park, so stay tuned for posts on that!

Before I wrap up this post, I wanted to remind everyone that the California Photo Festival is coming up in less than a month! If you’re in the Los Osos/ San Luis Obispo area and haven’t signed up yet, definitely check it out! Here are the classes I’ll be teaching:

-High Dynamic Range Mastery
-Sunset on the Beach (live shoot)
-Getting Started with Lightpainting
-Directing the Viewer’s Eye
-Panos & Beyond

You can read about them in detail here:
http://www.californiaphotofest.com/events.php?instructor=26
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Soaking up Seattle

Posted by admin in Blog on September 17, 2012

This past week, Karen and I have been hanging out in the Seattle area. Karen had never been to Seattle before, so she wanted to get a good taste of the city. As luck would have it (and “luck” seems to always be on our side), our friends from Lake Havasu, AZ were visiting Seattle the same time as us. We met up with them at the famous Pike Place Market and started exploring together. Since it was a “first time” experience for most of the folks in our group, we decided to have lunch at Pike Place Chowder. Chowder is a must in Seattle. Karen and Lisa were also excited to find that they had a vegan chowder!

After exploring the market a bit (and I pretty much had to pry Karen out of there) we hit up the space needle, and then the Chiluly glass museum located at the base of the needle. If you’ve never seen Chihuly’s stuff before, you should DEFINITELY check this place out. It’s kind of like walking into a Dr. Seuss book… only made of glass. Our group had dinner that night at a funky Italian place called Bizarro. Yes, it sounds bizarre, but it’s one of the few Italian places that I would actually recommend. The dishes were unique and the place had tons of character.

From left, John, Clint, Wayne, Andrew, Lisa, Me and Karen. We were so excited with this group in Seattle!

Karen got this shot of me at the Chiluly exhibit. I was shooting with the Lensbaby Sweet 35 lens… super nice!

Since we were in Seattle, I couldn’t help but visit Adobe’s local office. Adobe’s Patty Wilson invited us to watch in on a game of “Adobe Wiffle Ball.” Her team was in the company finals… and, well, it was quite the event for them. Their headquarters is also located within walking distance of the funky Freemont Troll, a giant concrete troll figure located under a bridge. Karen and I walked there after visiting Adobe. We didn’t take a lot of photos because some jerk spray painted the thing up in bright pink paint.

Me in front of Adobe’s Seattle headquarters.

Karen and I made a return visit to Pike Place Market one night. Karen wanted to shoot some more there, and take in more of Seattle’s local flavor. She bought this amazing flower bouquet (that was literally half her size) for $10! Crazy! We also drove around in search of places to shoot panoramas. We both wanted to shoot the Seattle skyline, but we wanted both sunset and twilight, and we also wanted an angle that included both the city buildings AND the space needle. We found a couple great places and did a lot of shooting. You can see some of the results below.

Karen with her monster bouquet at Pike Place Market.

 

I shot this panorama from Kerry park in Seattle at sunset. After merging, it turned out to be 27 feet wide! Check out the video below to see details on it.

Here’s a detail shot from the above panorama. Click to enlarge it and you’ll get a 100% view.

Here’s another panorama from a different locale in Seattle. The detail shot is a 100% view of the above panorama.

I created a little video that gives a better perspective on one of the panoramas. And, if you happen to be interested in shooting fun panoramas as well, I recently created a video that includes my favorite tips and techniques for shooting panorama images. You can find that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0j8WH4IbEw&feature=relmfu

Karen and I plan on spending a few more days in the Seattle area and then moving on. To where, we’re not quite sure yet! That’s the beauty about living on the road! More to come…

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About Ben & Karen

Ben: I'm a traveling Photoshop guru who loves to explore everything unique and extraordinary. I'm a photographer, former graphic designer and world traveler. Back on March 14th of 2006, I got sick of sitting still and waiting for my next vacation, so I sold 98% of my material possessions and started living on a tour bus ...for more visit my blog, photo site, or photoshop training site. Karen: I’m a photographer and graphic designer with an aptitude for anything involving pixels. I love being on the move, exploring the world and capturing it all with my camera. I joined Ben living on the road January 24th, 2010. For more on my work and play, visit my blog or photo site.

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