The Palm Springs Photo Festival 2012
This past week was spent in sunny Palm Springs, CA for the 7th annual Photo Festival, directed by Jeff Dunas. I taught two classes at the event and attended some as well. We arrived on Sunday night, just in time for the opening ceremony and cocktail hour, held at the beautiful Korakia Moroccan-style Bed and Breakfast. Many of the festival events were held here, and we just loved the feel of this place, with its unique style, elegant bonfires and waterfalls. Jeff kicked off the event with some announcements and introductions and the rest of the time was spent mingling and reconnecting with folks in the photo world. Karen and I met up with my great friend and photographer, Lee Varis, as well as Barbara Ellison, from Canon. The four of us ended up spending a lot of time together during the course of the festival.
At the opening night of the Palm Springs Photo Festival, Jeff Dunas makes some announcements and introductions.
Overall, I am really impressed with the way this festival is run. Everyone is extremely organized and helpful and all of the individual events are very well thought out. There are even gatherings in the evenings that include a late night networking party/wine tasting, outdoor dinners and interesting presentations. The organizers do an amazing job of tending to both the attendees and instructors. The two classes I taught both included Photoshop fixes and retouching techniques. I attended a handful of classes, including ones on how to find an agent, the Lightroom 4 develop module, an evening symposium on getting your work noticed and a full-day workshop on dramatic lighting.
Here I am at one of the evening symposiums. Love the seating!
With all of the photography being displayed, as well as the networking aspect of the festival, I also made a point this week to organize my own image portfolio for display on the new iPad. After reading several reviews for iPad portfolio apps, I decided to use one called Minimal Folio, and I like it so far. With the retina display of the new iPad, the images look amazing. Karen said it looked like you could reach in and touch the subjects of the photographs!
Here I am with Lee and Barbara sharing a glass of wine before dinner at the Korakia.
The festival wrapped up on Friday afternoon and we plan on leaving Palm Springs this morning (Monday). And where will we head next? We have no idea! That’s one of the beautiful things about living on the road. More to come…