by Ben Willmore | Jun 17, 2015
Hi gang! I wanted to give you all a heads up on a new class we just announced. I’ll be teaching a 2-day course called “Travel Photography: The Complete Guide” on July 6-7 at CreativeLive. This is an online class that will go live from 9 am to 4 pm PST and it’s completely free to watch while it’s live! If you want to watch and re-watch the class videos at your leisure, you can purchase the course to stream or download the files.
This class will cover a subject that is near and dear to my heart: travel photography! After all, my lifestyle is such that I travel full time, whether on the road in my motor coach or at sea on a ship that I teach on. I chose this lifestyle so that I could photograph all over the country and all over the world. My photo library contains images from all 50 states and dozens of countries and I would love to teach you everything I’ve learned along the way!
Here I am shooting at the Big Buddha Temple in Ko Samui, Thailand.
Here is the class description at CreativeLive:
It takes the perfect combination of gear, exposure, and creative thinking to produce travel images that stand out from the rest. Learn the how to bring the critical ingredients together in Travel Photography: The Complete Guide with Ben Willmore.
Fresh off a seven-country, two-month international trip, Ben will share everything it takes to create exciting and memorable travel images. You’ll learn how to:
- Deal with everyday tourists in your shots
- Select the best lens for each situation
- Organize the chaos of a scene into a compelling image
Ben will cover everything you want to know about selecting, packing, and protecting gear. You’ll also develop an efficient digital workflow that fits the fast-paced lifestyle of travel shooting.
Don’t go on your next travel adventure without the insights and skills you need to capture high-quality images, fast processing – join Ben Willmore for Travel Photography: The Complete Guide.
I hope you’ll join me online (or in the studio audience in Seattle) on July 6th and 7th! You can learn more about the class and register for free HERE.
by Ben Willmore | Feb 16, 2015
Hi gang! I just wanted to give everyone a heads up on some great training events that will be happening over the next month. We’ve got a mix of Photoshop and photography as well as a mix of online and in the field.
Photoshop Week
Pretty soon, I’ll be heading back to the CreativeLive studio in Seattle to teach several classes during Photoshop Week. Over the course of six days, 13 instructors will present a total of 48 classes, all related to Photoshop, and as with all CreativeLive classes, they’re free to watch while their live. Here is CreativeLive’s description of the event:
One of the biggest events in photography is coming back to CreativeLive – get ready to learn from the industry’s best during Photoshop Week 2015!
Photoshop helps you transform the average image you have into the jaw-dropping image you want! Photoshop Week is your opportunity to learn the tools, techniques, and shortcuts you need to bring your unique creative vision to life.
For six days, the world’s most inspiring photographers and retouchers will show you how they work their magic in Photoshop and Lightroom. You’ll learn exciting new ways to transform your work and create images that stand out from the masses.
This action-packed line-up has classes for photographers working at every level. You’ll learn exciting new approaches to enhancing your images from professionals working in every genre of photography.
My classes at Photoshop Week:
- Quick Selection Tips
- Complex Selections
- Getting the Most out of Smart Objects
- Understanding Layer Masks
- Texturizing Images
- Filters & Creative Effects in Photoshop
Click here for more info on my Photoshop Week classes
Click here for more info about the event and to register for free
Shooting the West
Ever want to join me both in the classroom AND in the field? On March 3-8, I will be teaching at the annual Shooting the West event, in Winnemucca, Nevada.
Shooting the West is a photography symposium with distinguished presenters in many different photographic fields. Throw in workshops, participant shows, juried contests, vendors like Manfrotto and Canon, portfolio reviews, great Basque food and lots of Winnemucca style fun… and you have a pretty good idea what it’s all about.
Im excited to be the keynote speaker at this week-long event, and to work with the Shooting the West team for the first time! It’s going to be a really immersive week, as I’ll be teaching full-day classes that include shooting in the field, processing in the classroom and final critique. Here’s what I’ve got in store for participants:
- HDR Photography: All day class that includes shooting in the field, processing in the classroom and final critique
- Panoramas: All day class that includes shooting in the field, processing in the classroom and final critique
- Post-processing for Outdoor & Travel Photographers: All day class, in the classroom
- Think Like a Photographer: 90-minute session
- Image Ambulance: 90-minute session
Those are just the workshops and seminars that I’m teaching. Click here to learn more about the event and see the full schedule.
International travels
Shortly after we wrap up Shooting the West, I’ll be flying to Hong Kong, where I will begin a 2-month, multi-country journey aboard the beautiful Crystal Symphony. Karen and I present the Digital Filmmaking course to our fellow guests and it’s always an incredible experience. We get to meet loads of interesting people, and visit interesting places. Below is our itinerary.
by Ben Willmore | Sep 15, 2014
Hi everyone! I am currently in Seattle to teach at Photo Week at creativeLIVE. Photo Week is 6-days of non-stop training that includes everything from gear demos to master classes, and it STARTS TODAY! They will be featuring over 35 world-class instructors on three different broadcast channels and of course, as always with creativeLIVE, when you watch it live, it’s free.
I will be teaching a class on Lightpainting today, Monday, at 1:30 PST. Lightpainting is where you use a flashlight (or other light source) to paint the light onto your subject in a dark room over a long exposure. The results are always incredibly unique which makes it a great way to portray an ordinary subject and make it look extraordinary. Here’s the official class description:
Discover the unique art of light painting, and add a new dimension of light painting into your photography. Experienced light painter Ben Willmore will introduce you to the basics of light painting in this fun and informative class. You’ll learn which tools and settings to use to get your desired effect and how different light sources can be used to produce dramatically different looks.
Learn how to combine an interesting subject, inexpensive gear, and a little light painting knowledge to produce dramatic and interesting results.
Check it out or learn more HERE, and I hope to see you there!
by Ben Willmore | Aug 4, 2014
Hi gang! It’s time for another update, and this time it’s a gear update! As you may know, I have been a Canon shooter for years and I’ve really enjoyed using Canon gear. However, I’ve been giving my setup a lot of thought, and have been doing a ton of research, and I finally came to the conclusion that it was time to make a switch. *Insert gasp sound effect here*
The other day, I placed the order for my next camera… the Sony A7R!
Why would I want this one over my current Canon 5D Mark III?… Here are the main things that compelled me to change to the A7R:
• Worlds Smallest and lightest full-frame interchangeable lens camera
• 36.4 megapixels with no low-pass filter (same as Nikon D800E and D810)
• Built-in Wifi so I can shoot “untethered” to my computer and also transfer images to my iPhone in the field so I can post them here right away
• Can use my Canon glass via an adaptor (17mm tilt shift mainly)
• Captures much more highlight detail than 5D Mark III
• Articulated screen for shooting from high or low angles
• Can see exposure changes in viewfinder
• Focus peaking for easier manual focusing
A few comparisons Sony vs Canon:
Weight in grams 408 vs 910
Dynamic range 14.1EV vs 11.7 (read more highlight detail)
7392×4920 pixels vs 5920×3950
DxOMark score 95 vs 81
The bad part compared to my current camera:
• Bracketing options limited to 3 frames with 2 stops between… can’t do 5, 7, etc at 2 stops
• 4 frames per second versus 6 on my Canon
• Shutter is somewhat loud
• Batteries don’t last as long due to constant use of electronic screens
• Nowhere near as many lenses available
• No GPS accessory available to automatically location tag my images
The camera should be arriving this week, and I look forward to putting it through the paces myself. The next blog post will probably include my first impressions, so stay tuned for that!
Post Processing for Outdoor & Travel Photographers
In other news, my recent class on creativeLIVE, “Post-Processing for Outdoor & Travel Photographers,” was a great success, and as usual, I had a great time working with the creativeLIVE team up in Seattle. If you missed the class, you can learn more or GET IT HERE. If you buy the class, you get the bonus material, which includes the practice files as well as the course handbook pdf (this one is a whopping 80 pages!).
by Ben Willmore | Jul 20, 2014
Hi everyone! I wanted to give you all a heads up that tomorrow morning kicks off my 3-day online class, “Post-Processing for Outdoor & Travel Photographers” at creativeLIVE. I’ve spent the past week hunkered down in preparation and am on my way to Seattle today. As with all creativeLIVE classes, they’re absolutely free to watch while they’re live. If you want to watch at your own pace and get all the bonus material (including the course handbook), you can purchase the class for a discounted price while it’s live.
The classes run 9 am-4pm PST on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (July 21-23), and they will be rebroadcast in the evenings as well. In these sessions, I’ll be teaching both Photoshop and Lightroom. Here’s the course description:
Spend more time actually taking photos
It’s time to make the images you capture as you travel or explore the great outdoors even more jaw-dropping. Join photographer and image editing expert Ben Willmore to explore the Lightroom and Photoshop tools that will optimize your images to really make them shine while keeping them easy to find and organized.
In this course, you’ll master the post-production process every travel and outdoor photographer needs to know. From panorama stitching to HDR to fixing distortion in architectural images, you’ll dive deep into the editing tasks best performed in Photoshop. You’ll adjust and optimize your images – even if they’re overexposed, underexposed, or have color or contrast issues.You’ll also learn how to organize your images with Lightroom make them easy to find by location taken, subject, or date. Ben will cover specific tips on uploading and organizing while you are still on the road that will save you time and make things easy when it is time to edit. You’ll also develop an editing workflow that helps you retouch quickly and efficiently.
If you’re ready to spend more time outdoors taking stunning photos and less time stuck indoors processing (or finding!) them, this is the course for you.
And finally, I’ll leave you with some fun before & afters to give you an idea of some of kinds of processing we’ll be doing. Hope you’re able to tune in!
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Here I am shooting at the Big Buddha Temple in Ko Samui, Thailand.