Impressions Professional Imaging 2012

Pfffff.
Yesterday we arrived back home from 3 “brutal” days of Professional Imaging.
Professional Imaging (http://www.professionalimaging.nl) is a tradeshow that is organized every year and is a combination of an Expo floor with many companies like Canon, Nikon, Epson, NIK, OnOne, Adobe, Wacom etc. etc. You could say it’s the biggest tradeshow in the Netherlands aimed at the photographer.

Frank, Drew and Dave

Every year there are also some big name speakers, in the past names like Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski etc. all spoke several times on the Professional Imaging. I’ve been involved on the trade show for many years as a speaker in the Elinchrom booth where I will do several demos (small workshops) during the day and of course take a lot of time to talk to people and review portfolios etc. so the Professional Imaging is always very busy for me… this year however it was even more busy.

Your questions our answers with Drew, Dave and Frank session

2012 the speakers for the main stage were my good friends Drew Gardner and Dave Black.
Both amazing photographers in their own “game”. Dave I already knew for sometime via Kelbytraining and I think he is not a sports photographer as you normally would see a sports photographer, I think his images are so crazy above the rest that I always call them art (something Dave loves :-)). And Drew well I can be very short about this guy, an amazing photographer with epic sets and also a photographer with humor and some real good insights in styling.

So it was no surprise that their shows went great and people were enthusiastic about the material learned.
For me it was the first time that I was also on the main stage in the Adobe theater, and not only that… I was also asked to have to honor to teach the Masterclass, which is a 3 hour seminar where you take so more time to go in depth. For the masterclass I choose to write a seminar about the most simple things that most photographers do know but also often forget and when combined all together you can really lift your images to a whole new level.

Part of team Studio FD for day 1-2

During all the years I’ve been teaching workshops I found that things like composition and choosing the right angles and time is something that people will often regard as “easy and I know that” but somehow always forget or not use to the max. With this seminar I start out with very simple images shot during a holiday and point out what I did to make the images different than a normal snap, slowly building up to using all the techniques in model photography and building images that are more and more advanced and talk to the viewer. Half way through the seminar the images are getting more and more technical and techniques like metering, retouching, backgrounds, posing, coaching etc. are discussed. By this approach I think it’s a seminar that is both interesting for people who are not perse into model photography but still has an enourmous amount of information. At the end of the seminar I showed several experimental light setups and closed the session with a nice Q&A.

On the “adobe theater” stage I prepared two live shoots and although I’m used to doing this live it’s always very difficult/terrifying to do it in front of a crowd where most people already know you for many years, so to be honest I had nightmares about only 2-3 people showing up, but oh my…… my heart literally almost stopped when I saw the crowds, there were app 250 seats and there was no seat left empty for the small flash demo on Sunday, to be exact the people were even standing outside the theater blocking the hallways so far away that they could only be able to see the big projection screens. Because I prepared live shoots I was shocked that Adobe decided to put up a BIG wall only a few meters from the main stage…. this meant I had to improvise last minute and actually change my whole plan, but I think it worked out great (originally I planned some shots I needed a lot of room for).

The masterclass was originally planned for 40-45 seats but we ended up with more than 80 so that was also great.
The final live shoot was the one I had most difficulty with due the space restriction but the guys from the organization solved this in an awesome way (thank you guys so much), they removed a few seats and placed a separate podium which made it possible for me to move a bit more back to shoot the model jumping and moving, not the way I planned the moves (had planned some more room to make motion) but I think it worked out great. Also for this seminar the room was packed and people were standing, and this on a tuesday around lunch time, so from my side I would like to thank all the people that visited the seminars from the bottom of my heart.

Originally the program listed a lightroom4 demo at the end of the tradeshow but in a blast of creativity Drew, Dave and me decided to do an impromptu panel discussion where we would answer questions from the audience. We did not expected a lot of people because it was not originally planned, but luckily there was a good crowd that stayed for this panel Q&A and it was a blast (but way too short).

The seminars from both Dave and Drew were inspiring and showed jaw dropping photography, I just wished I could have seen more of it but I think the visitors were very lucky this year with the quality of speakers and got more than they bargained for :-). During the show it’s difficult to hang out because we were all so busy with people asking questions and teaching on the booth, the evenings however made more than up for that, my jaws are still hurting from all the laughs (and I still am without voice, which died on me after the panel discussion).

I’m already looking forward to PI 2013, and who knows what I will be doing that time, probably some demos on the Elinchrom booth and maybe some more. I do have a small news bit which is still pretty premature…. but maybe (very maybe) there will be something coming up this summer in the UK and Europe that will be awesome workshop wise 🙂 (can’t say more yet).

Thanks to Bram van den Heuvel for the backstage images.
I will upload some images from the demos myself during the week.

Many thanks to my team :
Assistants : Evita, Wendy, Sharon, Annewiek
MUA : Linda
Models : Nadine, Joline, Linda, Chantal

Fotoflits, Eyes on Media, organization Professional Imaging (Peter Duringhof and family/team)
Dave Black and Drew Gardner

And all the AMAZING, ROCKING, AWESOME, GREAT visitors.

And although I had little time to really browse the trade show I did manage to play around with the 5DMKIII, can’t wait till my order arrives. Camera feels totally different from the MKII, AF is quicker, shutter sounds a lot better, feel is better and the overall look of the camera is more towards the 1 series. Can’t wait to see the images when I test-drive mine for the first time.