Master Your Craft Seminar

Yesterday (as previously stated on the blog) I spent the day at the Master Your Craft seminar put on by Mike Colon and Bob Davis. The seminar more than ROCKED. It was so much better than I ever expected it to be and is quite possibly the best $200 I have ever spent. I know I have a few photographers who read my blog - and I have to encourage all of you to seek out this kind of learning - the whole day was so inspiring and motivating. I think there are a few stops left on the tour - buy a cheap plane ticket and go! Yesterday's session was attended by 125 photographers from all over the area - including one that flew in from Omaha!

Bob and Mike were so friendly and open. For a wedding photographer these two are kind of like celebrities. I follow their blogs regularly and admire their work - not just in photography, but in business. Just to give you non-photogs a little background; Bob Davis is well known as the celebrity photographer who did Eva Longoria and Tony Parker's wedding and also shoots regularly for Oprah. Mike is just as amazing and is one of the most well known wedding photographers and often graces the pages of Grace Ormonde's Wedding Style with complete fabulousness. But more than all their listable achievements, these two are inspiring for the way they exemplify giving back to their industry and colleagues.

I learned so much yesterday - I can't wait to start applying it to my work and to Mthree. The seminar was sponsored by Apple and Graphi Studio, so as part of the training, Martin from Apple gave a 45 minute presentation on the just released Aperture 2.0. I have been a Lightroom fan since about August and have loved it except for the crappy file management. What I saw yesterday was amazing. Aperture 2.0 is lighting fast, fully integrated into the Apple system and such an amazing tool. Apple took a group of world reknowned photographers (Mike and Bob included) and really listened to what pro photogs need in a piece of post-production software - and they gave it to us, in spades. One item in particular is a retouching brush (for those simple, quick fixes) that has edge detection. As I said under my breath when he showed this yesterday - "Dude." That one feature got a round of applause all on its own. By the end of the presentation I was a total convert and then they announced they would be giving one copy away. They collected everyone's business cards and I handed my brand new picture-adorned one over with a small wish and lo and behold I won! I am so stoked!

The fabulous Kenny Kim was along for the tour helping Mike and Bob out and taking pictures all day. Below is one of the collages he posted today about the experience - if you look closely you'll see me with Mike, Martin and Bob after I won my prize, one down on the left side.



Thanks to Kenny, Mike, Bob and everyone for a wonderful experience!