….a man known to virtually anyone who has attended a Photoshop World Conference; it’s photographer, educator, Photoshop freak, and the official un-official head of Security for Photoshop Midnight Madness and our official mascot, warm-up act, poet, trained killer, raconteur, and general bon vivant at large, the one….the only….. Vanelli! (also known as “Robert Vanelli” or “Mr. V” or just plain “V” to his friends and the various people he stalks).

I first met “V” back in 1999 at the first Photoshop World conference ever. He saw me use a Martial Arts logo that I had designed in a project in one of my classes, and after the class he came up and introduced himself.  We soon found out that we had some mutual friends in the martial arts industry (we both were martial artists, but at much different levels. I was just another black belt; whereas “V” is actually a Master Arts Master running a thriving Karate school for many years).

V has won aclaim for what he’s done as a Karate instructor, but in the past few years he’s taken his gift for teaching karate and expanded it into teaching his other passions: photography and Photoshop, and it’s a honor to have him here tomorrow as my guest blogger, and it’s equally an honor to call him my friend. I hope you’ll stop by tomorrow to see what Vanelli has in store for us.