If you went to Photoshop World in Vegas at the end of last year and made it to the Art of Digital Photography Panel you would have got to have seen the Master of Self Projects Joe Glyda do an amazing photo slide show based on just “looking up.”  Seeing what is above you because sometimes you are so busy looking straight ahead that you miss the world going on around you.

So while I was in New Mexico, I decided to take a bit of time and look down.  While I didn’t find as much as I would have liked I did find a few things that were fun to shoot.

First up with this old water meter cover that while it didn’t do anything for me in color worked created with a bit of Silver Efex Pro’s Holga filter added, with a few modifications of my own thrown in.

The 2nd, and slightly more odd is this old set of can opener keys from (at least what I can figure) is the remnants of an old sardine can that was laying on the porch floor boards of an old house.

So while I didn’t find much on my little self project in New Mexico I leave you with this thought.  Make sure you take time to really see what is going on around you in the world.  You may pass by the photo of a life time if you don’t stop and take a look around.  With our busy lives these days it isn’t always an easy thing to do, but I encourage you to try…

Images Captured with 1D Mark IIN 16-35f2.8 on Lexar digital film

Well,  long time no blog, right?  Well it as always has been a touch crazy around here for various reasons, but suffice to say sleep has not been occurring as of late.  So it has been a while since a blog post has been updated and now, here is one for all the faithful readers who still check this site, even when there has been nothing posted for almost a month now.

So why the title “Got the Blues”, well it is because I just got back from Photoshop World and I already miss it like crazy, plus I got to photograph Big Electric Cat at the House of Blues again and it was amazing!!!!!!!

It was a great time at PSW and I can only say this,  ”If you have never been, kick yourself NOW!”  Not really, but I have to tell you the amazing amount of talent that is provided by the instructors at PSW is staggering.  There is pretty much something for everyone at this event, and every year it just gets better and better.  I got to sit in on a lot more classes this time, and I learned so much so fast my brain was getting ready to explode.  I sat in on Chris Orwig’s classes on Lightroom to better understand the basics,  I dropped in on RC Concepcion’s class on the Top 10 Things to Know in Photoshop, and the list goes on and on.

One class I deeply regret missing was Alan Hess’s class on photographing concerts which was co-instructed with Scott Diussa.  I heard it was off the hook.  So much so that a neighboring convention in the building came over to ask them to turn it down.  But even though I didn’t make it to the class I tried my best as always to get some great shots of the band while they were bringing down the house.

So believe it or not I have some educational content at this point, more of an observation than educational,  but you may find it useful.  I shot this with my Canon setup (1D Mark IIN 16-35f2.8 II).  Now the last couple of years I have been using Nikons to shoot the event, because my Canon just gave me way to much noise at the ISOs needed to freeze the action.  But this time around I thought I would try something I had not done before and that was to use the in-camera noise reduction option.

Now as you may know, this does slow down the write time to the card.  Usually it is a 1:1 ratio (however long the exposure was is how long the camera needs to process and write the image).  So this posed a challenge for me,  I had to be even more selective of my shooting and not fill the camera’s buffer every time I fired off a burst of shots.  This actually was a good thing for me to do.  I usually come away from photography the concert with anywhere from 10 to 20Gbs of cards filled up.  This time however, I barely filled an 8gig card halfway, and the photographs were better for it.  As well, the sort time was drastically shorter.  Plus the results of the in-camera noise reduction were really nice!!  So all in all it was a good thing all the way around.

So I guess what I am trying to say here is, sometimes stepping out of the norm cam be a good thing.  Slow down and think the shots through more and be patient, your photography will thank you for it.

So I ran across this image from last year’s PSW in Las Vegas.  It is funny, and I don’t know if you have experienced it, but I have.  You start going through old images, and ones that you didn’t like before, you now like.  I heard of this happening to photographers from time to time, and it is interesting.  Back in the day when I first started shooting digital I may have deleted this image to save harddrive space.  But now 8+ months later I really liked the way it looked, and I especially liked it using Silver Efex Pro.   It is just the way your photography and your eye evolves the longer you do this, and it is great!!  So there is no real lesson here except this.  Hard drives and memory are cheap these days don’t delete everything you don’t like.  Keep it around, because you never know what you might find later down the road.

Captured with 1D Mark IIN 17-40f4 on Lexar digital film

So tonight was the after hours party with Big Electric Cat at the House of Blues here at Photoshop World.  The band was off the hook last night and as always I was taking way too many shots.   I was up ’til 2 am sorting them all and I’m just now getting to blog this.  So I will let the pictures tell the story.

And if there was one photo to tell you how the night went it would have to be this one of Tony cutting loose on the guitar.

One thing about last night was that I got to shoot with the D700 from Nikon with a 24-70f2.8, and I have to say that is a rock solid system that performed outstanding all night long.

All images shot with Nikon D700 24-70f2.8 on Lexar digital film

WOW!!!, if RC and Corey weren’t cool already with that amazing iTouch contest this week the guys shot me a plug for the new book on Layers . If you have not ever had the pleasure to meet RC and Corey then come to a Photoshop World event. These guys are amazing and just spending time in a single class with either of them, will send you soaring by leaps and bounds in your knowledge of Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and the list keeps going. So check them out when you get a chance, I promise you will have a great time.