walklogo

It’s a Holiday Weekend here in the US (our offices are closed today in observance of Independence Day), so I’m going to keep it short and sweet. Let’s do it:

Photo Walk Update
By Monday we’ll have nearly 25,000 photographers registered for Photo Walks in 911 cities around the world. My buddy (and Photo Walk leader for Dunedin, Florida) RC Concepcion did a video on how to get prepared now for uploading your photos after the event. Here’s the link to watch his short, but very helpful, tutorial video.

Free Extreme Sports Photography Webinar on July 17th
You’re invited to attend a free online Webinar on Extreme Sports Photography with Michael Clark (the event is hosted by Bogen Imaging). Here’s the link to sign up.

Making Departures magazine’s list
American Express publishes a great travel and leisure-style magazine for card holders called “Departures” and in their current issue they have a feature story on which digital camera is right for you. They cover everything from cameras and lenses to accessories. In a sidebar the writer lists where to go to learn about photography online, and states, “there are no better resources.” I was quite excited when I read they included KelbyTraining.com in their list. Thanks Departures—it’s an honor.

Our “Lens Series” continues on D-Town TV
Yesterday, part 4 of our 5-part series on lenses went live on D-Town TV. If you’ve missed any of the episodes, they’re all still available right on the Web site.

Brad’s on Vacation Next Week
What is the world coming to when Brad is allowed to take time off? Frankly, I’m at a loss. How could this have happened?

Bill Fortney on our recent Savannah workshop
Bill did a few posts this week reflecting on our workshop in Savannah last week, and on life in general. If you’ve got a quick second, stop by and catch some of Bill’s thoughts and images from the week (definitely worth a visit). Here’s the link.

A New Photography Term?
When I was in Savannah and we were shooting that classic red Cadillac convertible, Bill asked one of the students to remove a feather on the ground right in front of where Bill was shooting. Somebody mentioned that he could remove it later during “post  production” in Photoshop, and that’s when I came up with a  phrase for the act of actually picking up and moving a distracting piece of something from the scene. I laughingly said “That’s called Pre-Production.” Hey, ya never know—it could stick. ;-)

My 1,000 Post happened this week
I just happened to look up yesterday and saw that I had released my 1,000th post on this blog. Right then I realized, “Rats! I could’ve written a book.” ;-)

What ‘Independence Day’ Really Means to Us
Tomorrow is a national holiday celebrating our country’s independence from traditional film. No longer will we press the shutter button thinking, “Well, that just cost me 22¢” or “Well, that’s 36—time to pop in another roll.” or that phrase heard so often on vacation, “I need to stop and buy some film.” Should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice: No longer will we wait hours, or days, to see our prints only to find out that someone was blinking or the flash didn’t fire. No longer will we go quitely into the night, to drop off our film in an overnight drop box. We’re going to live on to shoot for free another day—free from the tyranny of film chemicals and safe lights; changing bags and temperature regulators; cotton gloves and Print tongs. No today as we gather together to fill our 8 and 16-gig cards with wild abandon we celebrate our real Independence Day! (–insert wild cheers here).

That’s it for today folks. I hope you all have a wonderful July 4th weekend, surrounded by friends and family, and all the joys that it brings.