Photoshopworld 2008

We came into town early to meet up with Fred to do some shooting. Helene got us set up to take a tour of the Neon Boneyard, An outdoor collection of neon signs from the hotels and casinos of Las Vegas past. We had an hour to shoot as much as we could on the walking tour. In the afternoon we drove over to Lake Las Vegas to have lunch a look around. Got lots of cool elements for some new montages.

Next day was a 4-hour pre-con session that was a live “In The Studio” shooting class. We covered color management, calibration, exposure, histograms, and shooting techniques that included different still life product shots like this golf club ad done as a live demonstration. Helene got to go on a live shoot pre-con to a nearby ghost town with Joe McNally and Moose Peterson.

That night we had our opening NAPP staff and instructor dinner at Maggiano's. Time to get caught up with our NAPP family and catch up on what everyone has been doing…

The next morning was the opening Keynote with Johnny L. and John Nack from Adobe giving us great info on upcoming technology and features of what Adobe has in store for us. My assistant Hugo was a finalist in the conference Guru awards in the commercial photography division.

My first class was “Creating The Fine Art Montage” where I did a step-by-step version of my hands of brick illustration. In the afternoon Helene ran the Portfolio review where she coordinated instructors and conference attendees in 15 min meetings.

That night, Helene talked our way into being let into the House of Blues private club on the top floor of the hotel for a tour of the club and a few minutes of shooting off their patio with the best view in town of the Las Vegas strip….

The NAPP party went on from there with lots of food, people, and music from Scott Kelby’s band Big Electric Cat.

Moose and Helene find a new way to use an I-Phone.

Friday is always the big day. At least I didn’t get stuck in the elevator for 45 minutes like the class last year. It starts early in the morning getting set up with all the lighting equipment sent in by my lighting sponsor Booth Photo. www.boothphoto.com. I teach a live still life class for an hour, followed by Helene teaching a live portrait shooting class. Joe Glyda then does his live food shoot, followed by Frank Cricchio’s advance portraits classes. We all work together to get the classes done, Big thanks to Hugo, Fred, Julie, Steve and J F for all the help with packing and moving equipment all day with us to get this done. At the end of the last shoot we have only 15 minutes to prepare the room for my Art of Digital Photography panel with pretty much the whole conference in attendance.

The Art of Digital Photography is a 2-hour panel I host with 6 other photographers where we each show 15 minutes of our newest and best work. Jay Maisel, Joe Glyda, Joe McNally, Julieanne Kost, John Paul Caponigro, and Moose Peterson joined me on stage in what is considered by many as one of the best programs at Photoshop World. It’s lots of fun and a big honor for me to host it. I did two slideshows showing both my commercial work and my artwork to start things off.

The last day is seeing the trade show floor and meeting with many of our sponsors. We all gather for one big end of the show get together for a wrap up of the three days done by the NAPP video crew…

Final party in Scott’s hotel suite as we all say goodbye till next time.

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Back home in Atlanta from another Photoshop World in Las Vegas. From start to finish, it was a fast paced show. When we got to the Mandalay Bay, we finally got a room with a great view of the strip.