Every year I attend the Kelby Adobe Photoshop training seminar here in Denver,Colorado. Every year there are over 500 or so people attending, and every year I get inspired, so much fun. I always come back home feeling that just maybe I can create something different. I am finding the transitions interesting when it comes to software and technology trends. I feel it takes us on roller coaster journey all of its own very own, forever changing and the cost for many of us hard to keep up.
I enjoyed the seminar very much helping with work flow, and many other workings to speed up our Photoshop experience, to trying to create our very own style. I am a sucker for technology and will take a lot from yesterday. One of which was Camera Raw. I have not used Adobe Camera Raw very much, with a brief introduction when I had the opportunity to beta test for Adobe, I felt very green to its abilities. So yesterday I came away with a new understanding to its workings. I do most of my processing with Adobe Lightroom and enjoyed seeing what camera raw could do and Ben Willmore added a few twist to its uses that were fun.
It got me to thinking about where to go this next year, as a Photographer we all have the same labs available to us for prints, wraps and framing. We can all purchase the same plugins and templates at a cost for some and free downloads for the masses, so maybe the pocket book is the restriction, however would it not be better to create your own styles something different that stands alone, individual and unique. My question of how to differentiate myself is a daily banter. I do know some of us specialize in certain areas putting our efforts in children's portraits, family, maternity, and then there are the masters of nature, sports and the traveling photojournalist showing us the world through their eyes using light with both its beauty and pain. As I get to meet more and more people in the industry I find it interesting how many are continually trying to find the balance of learning from others yet making their own work different, and the masters who had a style and are trying to keep up with the ever changing world.
As I contemplate tomorrow and consider the past, living in the present is so much fun, I look to move to a new level next year with a new found excitement to be different and to make a difference where I can. Maybe it's our Character and attitude to life that will power us to new heights.
Just thoughts and thanks from a small fish in the big ocean.
