by Ben Willmore | Jul 7, 2014
Hi all! I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend! Things have been pretty low key here over the past few weeks, but I wanted to give a mini update anyway. First of all, if you read this blog often, you know that I’ve been based in the greater Tampa area for a while. That might seem a little unusual considering the fact that my mobile lifestyle usually takes me to between 12 and 30 states a year, so I just wanted to recap my RV/motor coach situation. My wife and I generally live on the road full-time in a 40-foot motor coach, traveling around to photograph and explore. We are also getting ready to switch motorhomes. We’ll be moving from the current bus I’ve been living in for 8 years to the vintage bus I have spent the past 4 years restoring and customizing to suit our needs. In anticipation of the vintage bus being completed, I’ve put the current bus up for sale and it has been cleared out to look like a “show home.” With the current bus for sale, and the future bus incomplete, we have been left without wheels. It’s been a interesting change for us, but we’re ok with it for now. We’re using the time to get projects done and do some things that require being in the same place for a while.
Just because I’m not living on the road at the moment, it does’t mean that I’m not traveling! I am still flying around to give training events, and I’m really looking forward to my next one. I’ll be heading back to creativeLIVE in Seattle later this month to teach my “Post Processing for Outdoor & Travel Photographers” class. It’s a 3-day online class that will be broadcast live on July 21-23, 9am-4pm PST. In this class, I’ll be using both Lightroom and Photoshop. You can read more about it or enroll for free RIGHT HERE.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been spending a lot of time hunkered down working these past few weeks. I’m getting ready for upcoming events and working on some future products as well. More to come next week, but for now, I’ll leave you with a photo from the pirate cruise Karen and I took with her parents on the 4th of July.
by Ben Willmore | Jun 23, 2014
Hi everyone! we’re currently in the greater Tampa area and I just wrapped up a fun week, which started all the way across the country in Seattle! Last week was Creative Cloud Fundamentals Week at creativeLIVE, and I was teaching the Photoshop segment of it. This was just a one-day class, and if you missed it, you can get it HERE, or get it as part of the whole CC Fundamentals bundle.
While we’re still on the topic of creativeLIVE, I’m excited to announce a new class I’ll be teaching next month, July 21-23. It’s called Post-Processing for Outdoor & Travel Photographers. This topic is extra special to me because these are two of the main types of photography I do. We’ll be using both Lightroom and Photoshop in this class, and you can learn more about it or enroll for free HERE.
I arrived back to the Tampa area after a redeye flight and landed the morning of my birthday! Aside from a much-needed nap, Karen had some fun things in store for the day including breakfast at one of our favorite places in the area, a cake she made completely of fruit (because that’s my favorite!) and a visit to a local brewery. (I’m a huge fan of craft beer and love to visit different breweries as we travel about.) Near the end of the day, we embarked on a sunset cruise that left from Clearwater Beach. While the actual sunset wasn’t overly spectacular, the sky put on quite a show for us afterwards. It was a great mix of storm clouds lit by what was left of the golden light. We even got to see a waterspout (a water tornado) nearby. Pretty cool! At the end of the night, we had dinner at a tapas place we like in Clearwater Beach.
An iPhone pano I shot of the post-sunset clouds in Clearwater
Karen and I on the sunset cruise
As implied from the title of this post, I also got to do some shooting this week. If you read this blog often, you know about my service station project. I have researched and located over 250 vintage service stations around the country and my plan is to photograph each one. I had been conversing with the owner of this Polly Station in the greater Tampa area and we finally set up a time this week for me to head over and shoot it. The shot below is just an iPhone shot that I also processed on the iPhone. The actually shots will take much longer to process.
Well, that’s it for now folks. The upcoming week will be more on the mellow side, where I’ll be catching up with work and some image processing. More to come!
by Ben Willmore | Jun 2, 2014
Hi gang! I just wanted to give you the weekly update on where I’ve been and what I’ve been teaching, as well as a heads up on an upcoming event (that anyone can attend online, for free!). I started out the week with a flight to Sacramento to teach my one-day Photoshop Creativity Seminar. This seminar covers things like compositing, adding dimension to your images, masking, blending modes and more. We’ll be adding more dates and cities to this seminar tour soon, and you can learn more about it HERE. Flying into Sacramento, I also got an extra treat because I was picked up at the airport by my good friend and fellow photographer Lewis Kemper. It had been a long time since I had run into Lewis at an event we were both teaching at, so it was nice to be able to catch up!
My Sacramento Photoshop Creativity Seminar.
Me and my good pal and fellow photographer Lewis Kemper
My stay in Sacramento was very brief, and from there I flew to Eugene, Oregon, where my vintage bus is getting its custom interior installed. If you follow this blog regularly, you know that I’ve been making lots of periodic visits to work on this ongoing project. The interior is really coming along though, so it’s nice to have an end in sight! I was recently able to acquire the rubber fittings that will go around the windows. This might not seem too exciting, but considering the bus is older than I am, things like that aren’t always the easiest thing to find! The Epson printer that we’ll use on the bus also arrived, and I was happy to see that it fit perfectly into the drawer that was designed for it. This drawer is underneath my workstation seat, so whenever I need to print something I’ll just be able to open the drawer, load it with paper and be good to go.
The new Epson printer fitting perfectly into the drawer that was specially designed for it.
The rubber fittings that will go around the windows on my vintage bus.
After leaving Eugene, I flew back to Tampa, FL, where Karen and I will be hanging out for most of the summer. I did want to give you a heads up on another one-day event I’ve got coming up, and this one is easy for anyone in the world to attend, because it’s online. And when it’s live, it’s free! The class is called Photoshop CC Fundamentals and I’ll be teaching it at creativeLIVE. In this course, I’ll demonstrate essential tools and concepts that will get you successfully using the program. You’ll learn about everything from selections and masking to layers, filters and adjustments. I’ll will also point you to the best options for the crucial technical settings such as resolution, color spaces and file formats. Click here to learn more about this class or to register for free.
More to come!
by Ben Willmore | May 5, 2014
Hi everyone! Lately, I’ve been dedicating the blog posts to our recent international travel images, but I wanted to take a little break from that to tell you what’s been going on here in the States, and what’s coming up. After being abroad for a few months, I arrived back in the U.S. and literally hit the ground running, diving head-first into lots of fun Photoshop training and photography events.
The Photoshop Creativity Tour
I basically had time to unpack and repack to fly out to my Photoshop Creativity seminar in Chicago. This is part of an ongoing tour with KelbyOne that hits cities all over the country. At this event, I teach you how to get a little more creative with Photoshop with techniques like compositing, complex masking, 2D and 3D and creating special effects with blending modes. It’s a fun full-day event and I’ve got a few more cities coming up, so if you happen to be in any of these areas, I’d love to see you there! Click HERE for more information
- Philadelphia: May 7
- San Francisco: May 9
- Sacramento: May 28
* We’ll be adding more cities soon, so stay tuned!
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Photoshop for Photographers: Beyond the Basics
I spent an awesome three days at creativeLIVE in Seattle last week presenting by 3-day course called “Photoshop for Photographers: Beyond the Basics.” Not only do I love working and hanging out with the amazing team at creativeLIVE, but the class turned out fantastic! This course is a follow-up to my earlier “Photoshop for Photographers: The Essentials” class, which was also very popular. Where as the “Essentials” class covered all of the basic, must-know techniques for photographers using Photoshop, the “Beyond the Basics” class teaches photographers how to take their work to the next level, covering more of the advanced techniques and tools. Over the three days of training, we cover things like compositing, textures, retouching, hard-to-find Photoshop features and more. If you missed the course while it was live online, you can buy the course (and get all the bonus materials that come along with it)
HERE.
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Vintage Bus Visit
As many of you probably know, I have been restoring my next home on wheels, which is a 1963 Flxible Starliner bus. For the past year or so, it has been in Eugene, Oregon getting its interior fabricated. I have been making periodic visits to collaborate with the team at Paradise Coach, and that’s where I went after Seattle. The bus has been making exciting progress, with all of the wood walls and cabinets being installed and stained, lighting and air conditioning ducts put in, etc. After working on this project for over four years, It’s great to see everything finally coming together. I post a lot of bus updates on the Creative Cruiser facebook page, and you can find that
HERE.
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The Palm Springs Photo Festival
This is an annual event that I love to attend and teach at. It’s geared toward professional and serious advanced amateur photographers and includes seminars, symposiums, workshops, portfolio reviews with key industry figures and lots of great networking events. This is the kind of event where I enjoy being an attendee just as much as I enjoy being a speaker. I love the mix of inspiring talks, lectures designed to help photographers make it in the business world and high quality feedback from industry professionals. This year, I taught two classes on advanced Photoshop ideas and attended many talks as well. It’s also a great event to reconnect with fellow teachers and photographers that I’ve become friends with over the years. Here are a few shots from this year’s event:
Philadelphia & San Francisco
As I mentioned above, I am bringing my Photoshop Creativity Tour to Philadelphia this week and I flew in a few days early to spend the time with Karen’s family in New Jersey (Karen has been in NJ for family-related things during the time I’ve been at the events mentioned here). Then, I will be presenting the same seminar in San Francisco before heading back to Florida, where we are currently based.
I hope that gives you a good idea of what I’ve been up to and what new Photoshop and photography training I’ve got going on! More to come!
by Ben Willmore | Jan 26, 2014
Hi everyone! This is just a reminder that my Photoshop for Photographers: The Essentials online class kicks off tomorrow at 9 am PST and runs for three days. As with all creativeLIVE classes, it’s totally free to watch while it’s live. If you want the class to watch later (and get the bonus material), you can purchase it while it’s live for a discounted price.
So what will you learn? Here’s the class description:
Overwhelmed by Photoshop? Ready to start editing your photos more efficiently? Join creativeLIVE for a three-day course that will give you an in-depth understanding of the Photoshop skills every photographer should know.
Award-winning photographer Ben Willmore has taught hundreds of thousands of photographers worldwide how to harness the power of Photoshop, and he’s ready to share his unique insights and style with you. You’ll learn about optimizing images, sharpening, retouching, black and white conversion, directing the viewer’s eye, and much more. Ben will take the guesswork out of Photoshop by covering which menus and tools are essential — and which you’re better off ignoring.
By the end of this course, you’ll have the core, everyday Photoshop skills that every photographer needs to produce professional-grade work.
If you do choose to purchase the class, you’ll get the course handbook, which is a pdf that Karen is creating that will review all the techniques I cover.
Find out more info and enroll for free HERE. (You get my “5 Tips for Making your Images POP” pdf just for enrolling.)
