When you get comfortable, move.

First off, thanks to Scott and Brad for this opportunity to connect with such a broad and passionate audience.  I’m Scott Rinckenberger, right hand man to Chase Jarvis, the fastest moving photographer I’ve ever seen.

We recently brought on a new intern at Chase Jarvis Inc.  It’s a tough gig to get.  For a while I couldn’t really put my finger on why he had made the cut, despite being the person in charge of the hiring.  Sure, he was hard working with a great attitude, but that’s an absolute prerequisite among the talented field of applicants seeking work at our shop.  I knew he was the right guy for the job, just couldn’t say exactly why.  Then we were having chat on the way back from a location and he was explaining his life’s path.  He said something that made me realize why he had been the one chosen.  “I hate to be comfortable.  When I get too comfortable I move.”  And with this offhand comment I realized why he is so qualified.  He had landed at the very core of what it means to work at Chase Jarvis Inc.  An absolute dedication to kinesis.  Some companies fear change.  Ours is built on it.

Chase and I met while he was early in his career and specializing in outdoor sports photography.  He was one of the outstanding ski photographers in the country at the time, and I was enjoying a position of some regard as an aspiring pro skier.  Our paths crossed with increasing frequency as magazines and ski companies took notice of the skiing and photography we were working together to create.  Soon we were traveling the globe to produce images for the best publications and companies in the sport.  It was during this period that our relationship was cemented on a foundation of hard work, ambition, and an overarching positive outlook on life.

The professional respect that Chase and I fostered in our photographer-subject relationship soon transitioned into regular assisting gigs for summer clients during my off-season.  This eventually lead to an internship, then part time employment, and finally six years ago into a full time gig as the “right hand man”.  Chase has been in the professional photography game for around thirteen years.  I’ve been there for ten of those.  Watching, helping, and learning as Chase has grown a budding outdoor sports photography business into one of the most recognized brands in photography today.

Ten years ago you could have asked me if I could assist a single photographer for almost a decade.  The answer would have been a resounding no!  How could I possibly be expected to change rolls of film (yup, started with film), clean lenses, edit slides, and track an inventory of images for ten years?  I mean, it only takes a year or two to master the whole gig, right?

Well, there were all those interesting changes.  The advent of professional digital photography, the Photoshop era, the rise and fall of macrostock, changing copyright laws, online photo distribution, social media, nothing short of the largest shift in the photography industry since, well maybe ever.  These changes could have kept me in the assisting role for even a couple more years to put new systems in place, learn some Photoshop skills, and then move on to shoot my own work.  Interesting times, but not interesting enough to keep a fast moving guy like myself in the same gig for years.

Until you add the Chase Jarvis factor.

Chase Jarvis.  The whirlwind of energy who has already in his thirties become something of a living legend has managed to keep me not only interested, but running at ABSOLUTELY FULL SPEED to keep up.  Editorial and stock shooter, commercial photographer, Hasselblad Master, Nikon poster boy, award winner, blogger, social media wizard, fine art photographer, book creator, software developer, video director, mobile photography evangelist, all of these titles and more have been attached to Chase Jarvis in his relatively short career.  There are few who doubt that Chase runs one of the most dynamic shops in the business.

With each of the arenas in which Chase has seen fit to expand his business, comes a new set of requisite skills, both the outward facing skills (i.e. Chase’s role) and the background skills (those of myself and the rest of our incredible crew).  When Chase was specializing in editorial photography I focused on selecting, submitting, and tracking slides around the world.  Stock was all about smart editing and attention to minute detail.  When we moved on to exclusively commercial work, the volume decreased, but the travel skills, workflows, and post production had to be of the highest level.  The Hasselblad and Nikon days called for a more experimental brand of photography with complex lighting and retouching projects (you can’t imagine how many hours I spent in Photoshop making this dirt explosion just right, it’s almost embarrassing.)

Once the blog, behind the scenes videos, and social media came into the picture there was an almost constant need for evolution.  I’ve learned the ins and outs of shooting and editing video and behind the scenes stills, becoming comfortable on camera, blog writing, social marketing strategy, and working hard to find ways to inspire other artists in as many ways as can be imagined.  Now books and iPhone apps are requiring  long term planning and vision, and a lightning fast response time as the projects change and develop.

We have been fortunate enough to be able to expand our staff as the complexity of our projects has increased.  The first to join in was Chase’s wife, Kate. She keeps the productions tight and the numbers in the black.  Dartanyon came on board next. He combines an encyclopedic knowledge of photography with an innate ability to actually talk to computers (seriously, he can talk to computers and make them do what he wants).  Mikal was the next to join the team. She brings production, PR, and marketing skills.  And we are happy to welcome the aforementioned Norton, Brazilian intern extraordinaire.  Most of what we do would not be possible without the support that comes with this fantastic crew.

Not one of us have an education in photography.  We had college majors like English, French, Philosophy.  You know, those subjects that inevitably prompt your parents to ask just exactly you plan to make a living with that degree.  But what we lack in formal training is made up for in a blue collar work ethic, a disdain for convention, and a never ending search for new creative outlets.

So here I find myself ten years down the line with a passport that is almost completely full of travel visas, a server almost completely full of ridiculously complex Photoshop files, a computer bursting with applications that all strangely mean something to me, and a collection of memories that can hardly be accounted for.

As a team, we’ve hit ambitious revenue goals, won sought after awards, landed the big gigs, built a huge community of like minded creative people, all of the trappings of a successful photography business by any measure.  But here comes the punch line.  At our annual retreat, Chase wrapped up two days of meetings with this characteristic line that could only come from a mind as remarkable as his.  “For the first time in my career, I really feel like things are starting to happen.  Now we’ve got to really go for it.”

I don’t think anyone’s going to be getting comfortable any time soon.

Many thanks to Brad Moore and Scott Kelby for facilitating this venue for photographers and their crews to share their insights and rants about all things photography.  To learn more about myself, Chase and the rest of the crew, visit chasejarvis.com, chasejarvis.com/blog, facebook.com/scottrinck, or facebook.com/chasejarvis.

Hi folks—here’s what’s up:

New Help Portrait Web Site and Must-see Video
As Brad and I are starting to ramp up for our local “Help Portrait” shoot (on Saturday, December 12th), we just got word that organizer Jeremy Cowart (a really terrific guy and incredible photographer) has released a new updated version of the Help Portrait Web site, along with a quick video you’ve just got to see. Here’s the link (seriously, if you’ve got a minute, this is really an incredibly wonderful thing he’s doing. Don’t stand on the sidelines—-get involved with photographers all over the world who, on December 12th are giving back by sharing our talents to do something really great for those less fortunate).

Wait…I Forgot These Three!
Yesterday, after I posted my “10 things I wish I could Tell Every New Lightroom User” article, my buddy Matt Kloskowski did a follow-up post over at Lightroom Killer Tips with three more things he would add, and not only are they spot-on, but I agree with every one of them. Here’s the link to Matt’s follow-up post.

Just Released: “Editing Video Shot With Your DSLR” Online Class
Video guru, photographer, and Photoshop World instructor Richard Harrington just released a new online class at Kelby Training Online called Editing Your DSLR Video on a Mac, and it answers so many questions about this booming new area of creativity for photographers. If you’ve got a DSLR that shoots video, you’ve got to catch Rich’s class (here’s the link). NOTE: We have another class already in production on editing DSLR video for Windows users.

Also just released is a class from RC Concepcion called “WordPress Basics for Photographers.” We asked RC to do this class because we get so many requests from photographers who want to do their own WordPress Blogs, and there’s just not anything like this out there. Way to go, RC! (Here’s the link to that class).

Terry White (of Terry’s Tech-Blog Fame) Releases His Annual Holiday Gift Guide
Another guy in a race to ensure he gets little to no sleep is my buddy Terry White, who just released his Annual Holiday Gift Guide, and he’s got all the cool tech toys, camera goodies, Mac goodies, and well just loads of goodies for everybody on your shopping list. Here’s the link (definitely worth checking out. I saw lots of things I hadn’t thought of!).

Tomorrow’s Special Guest Blogger is…..
…following in the fine tradition of special guest bloggers that are photo assistant, and this week we’re honored to feature Scott Rinckenberger, who is Chase Jarvis’ assistant.

I’ve got to imagine, Scott has some amazing stories from his life in the field with Chase, so I can’t wait to see what he has to share, so please join us both here tomorrow to see what Scott has in store (That’s right, it’s “Double-Scott Wednesday”).

Have a Great Tuesday Everybody
During your day today, take two seconds to smile and know that so many of you here on the blog pitched in to help build a orphanage in Kenya that opened its doors on Friday, and without you guys, it that simply wouldn’t have happened. That is something worth smiling about.

The first of my three “Light it, Shoot it, Retouch it” online classes went live two weeks ago, and I just heard today that they’ll have the 2nd class live in just about two weeks.

I’ve gotten loads of great feedback from the first class, so I’m looking at adding more segments in the future, so if you’ve got any ideas of particular lighting looks you’d like to see, let me know and they might wind up as one of my next series of shoots.

In the meantime, here’s a link to my first of the three “LSR” online classes.

I got the idea for this post from an excellent post from Rob Sylvan (Rob is one of our Photoshop Help Desk gurus, as well as a Lightroom author and instructor), called “10 Things I Wish I Could Tell Every New Lightroom User.”

Rob’s article ran on Scott Bourne’s must-visit PhotoFocus.com site, and he had lots of really great tips for new users (here’s the direct link). I thought his idea was brillliant, and I sat down and started thinking about what I would tell new users, and then I thought I oughta do a similar post (with a different list of ten).

I was thinking of using a different name for mine, but then Rob wound up coming to to my Boston “Photoshop for Digital Photographers” seminar, and afterward he even gave me a ride to the airport. During that ride to the airport, although we didn’t talk about his post, I felt that somehow there was an implicit permission to run with his idea [ ] so with apologies (and full credit) to Rob (and Scott Bourne), here’s my own list, called:.

10 Things I Would Tell New Lightroom Users:

(1) Use Solo Mode To Tame All Those Panels
New users can get really flustered by scrolling up and down the list of open panels in Lightroom, which is why you should turn on “Solo Mode.” That way, the only panel you’ll see is the one you’re working on (and the rest all automatically collapse). This not only saves time, but cuts the clutter big time, and makes it easier to focus on just what you’re working with. You turn this on by Ctrl-clicking (PC: Right-clicking) on the title of any panel and choose “Solo Mode” from the pop-up menu that appears.

(2) Use Collections instead of Folders
Folders are where the actual photos you imported from a particular shoot are stored. Your good photos from that shoot, bad photos—the whole ball of wax. But once we import photos, are most of us really care about are the good ones, and that’s why Collections were invented (well, it’s one of the reasons anyway). Matt and I always joke that “Folders are where we go when we want to see the shots that weren’t any good” because we put all our “keepers” in a collection right away. Collections are safe, and will keep most users out of trouble.

(3) Store all your photos inside one main folder
You can have as many sub-folders inside that one main folder as you want, but if you want to have peace, calm, and order in your Lightroom, the key is not to import photos from all over your computer. Choose one main folder (like your Pictures folder on a Mac, or your My Pictures folder on a Windows PC), and put all your photos inside that folder. THEN import them into Lightroom (and if you’re importing from a memory card, have those images copied from the card info a folder within your main folder). Plus, this makes backing up your image library a breeze. Every time I run into someone who’s Lightroom life is a mess, it’s because they didn’t follow this one simple rule. Also, if you’re working on a laptop, it’s totally fine to store your photos on an external drive, rather than on your laptop.

(4) Do as much work in Lightroom as possible
I now do about 80% of my work in Lightroom in itself, and I only go over to Photoshop in case of an emergency, or to do something that Lightroom just can’t do (like collaging images with layers, or creating professional level type, or using the pen tool, applying certain filters, etc.).. You can do an amazing amount of your everyday work within Lightroom’s Develop Module (especially since the addition of the Adjustment Brush and Gradient Filter). So, take the time to learn these tools, and you will speed your workflow (and simplify your life) in ways you can’t imagine, by staying in Lightroom as much as possible.

(5) Create Presets and Templates whenever possible
The key to working efficiently in Lightroom is to make Presets and Templates for the things you do every day (even though a lot of users never take the few seconds it takes to create even one). If you find yourself making a particular edit more than just a couple of times; make a Develop Module preset for it, so it’s always just one click away. Have a printing set-up you use pretty often? Save it as a template. Once you start making presets and templates, your efficiency will go through the roof. Unless you’re charging by the hour, this is how to up your ROI big time!

(6) How to Save Your Image as a JPEG
Matt reminded me about this one and it’s a good one, because I get asked this question again and again at my Lightroom seminars. It’s because it’s not totally obvious how to do it, because there is no “Save As” or even just “Save” command under the File Menu (like almost every other app on earth). If you do go under the File menu, you’ll find four different Export commands, but none of them say “Export as JPEG” so again—it’s not real obvious. However, you can just choose the one called “Export,” when the dialog appears, you’ll have the Option to save your selected image (or images) as a JPEG.

(7) Turn off Auto Show for panels
I get more emails from new Lightroom users asking if there’s a way to turn off this “feature” than you can stick a shake at. I have users literally begging me; “Please tell me there’s a way to stop the panels from popping in and out on me all day long!” Thankfully, there is; Ctrl-click (PC: Right-click) on the little arrows on the center edge of each panel. A pop-up menu will appear—-just choose “Manual” and now the panels will only open when you click on that little arrow (or if you press the F-key keyboard shortcuts [F5 to show/hide the top navigation panel. F6 for the filmstrip at the bottom. F7 for the left side panels, and F8 for the right side panels], or if you press the Tab key it will hide all the panels).

(8) Throw away your old backups
If you back-up your catalogs on a regular basis (once a day, or weekly) before long you’re going to have a whole bunch of back-ups stored on your computer. After a while, if you’ve got a lot of photos, those old outdated back-ups are going to start eating up a lot of space on your hard disc, so go to your backups folder and delete the ones that are more than a couple of weeks old. After all, if your catalog got messed up, would you want to go back months in time, or last week? Right—those old ones are pretty much useless.

(9) It’s OK to have multiple Catalogs
You don’t have to keep everything in just one catalog—-you can create as many catalogs as you want (and you might want to create multiple catalogs if you’re going to have more than 40,000 or 50,000 images in one catalog). For example, I have separate catalogs for portraits, for family photos, for travel photos, for sports photos, for weddings, and so on. I know a wedding photographer that creates a brand new fresh catalog for every wedding he shoots. He likes the speed and cleanliness of of a fresh catalog with nothing it in but the photos from that one particular wedding. Creating a new fresh, empty catalog is easy—just go under the File menu and choose New Catalog (don’t worry—it doesn’t erase your old catalog—it just saves and closes it). To open one of your previously open catalogs, just go under Lightroom’s File menu and choose Open Recent.
(10) Ask yourself whether you need lots of keywords or not
We were all originally taught to invest a reasonable amount of time adding global and specific keywords (search terms) to all the photos we import. If you’re selling stock photography, this is an absolute must, and if you have a client base that might call you up and ask, “Send me all your photos of red car, and they need to all be in vertical orientation, and I only need one’s where you can see the driver, and the driver has to be female” then you’ll want to keyword like a pro. However, if you’re just keeping track of the photos from your vacation to Paris last year, you might not need to go through all your photos and assign keywords. Ask yourself this question: When was the last time I couldn’t find the photos I need by just going to my Collections panel? If you’re not having problems getting your hands on the photos you need in just seconds, you might be able to skip all the keywording stuff. I’m not telling you not to keyword—I’m just asking you to consider whether you need to add a bunch of keywords or not, because most users probably don’t need many (or any). [Code: IAARRWTAW]

So there ya have it—-the 10 Things I would Tell new Lightroom Users. Thanks again to Rob Sylvan for the original idea (and to Scott Bourne for publishing Rob’s original post), and I hope those 10 ideas (along with Rob’s) help to make your Lightroom life easier.

I am absolutely thrilled to share that last night I got an email from my friend Molly Bail from Springs of Hope, Kenya, to let me know that today they’re welcoming the first children to the Orphanage that you, the readers of this blog, helped to build.

Your contributions literally helped finish the roof on this orphanage earlier this year, and then later you helped buy the beds, furniture, and kitchen appliances, and now today there are homeless children that are homeless no more because of your gracious generosity. I am incredibly thrilled, and humbled at what you all have done in supporting the construction of this Orphanage.

In her email, Molly calls today’s opening a “soft opening” because they are still dealing with some electrical issues, but the first children arrive today, and are sleeping under a roof you helped build tonight. To me, that’s a grand opening indeed. (The photo’s above are from Molly, and the captions are hers as well).

It’s been a real struggle for Molly and Joseph to build this orphanage half way around the world, and in the past few months they have really struggled to clear the final hurdles, approvals, and mountains of red tape like you would not believe, but today we have something wonderful to celebrate.

Whatever else happens in your day, and whatever hurdles life throws at you today, just remember that because of your contributions, a homeless child now has a home, food, and has two people in Molly and Joesph that will love and protect them.

Honestly, there’s no adequate way to thank you all for what you’ve done. The phase “Thank you” isn’t enough, but thank you.

I ran across a site with this clever t-shirt this weekend, and thought you guys would get a kick out of it.

You can order yours right here.

Have a great weekend!

-Scott

Hi gang. First, I want to thank Tyler Stableford for a tremendously inspiring post yesterday. His post is really what it’s all about. When I met Tyler at Photo Plus Expo, I knew I had met a great photographer, but as he’s demonstrated through this actions, he’s much more than that, and I’m even more impressed. If you didn’t watch his video yesterday, please take a moment to watch it right now. It’s incredibly powerful, and you’ll be glad you did.

Cool new iPhone App for Adobe Freaks (like me)
My buddy Terry White has just released his own iPhone App (you knew it was only a matter of time, right?), that is already getting rave reviews. The App lets you watch Terry’s top-ranked “Creative Suite Podcast” right on your phone, but the advantage of using the App (as opposed to just subscribing to the Podcast and watching it on your iPhone) is that with the App, you get special Bonus Content, created especially for the iPhone App users, which won’t be available anywhere else. Plus, the App is a bargain—-it’s just $1.99 (less than a cup of coffee). Here’s the link to it. Totally cool, and very well designed Way to go Terry—you should write a book on the iPhone (Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Borders).

Thieves are targeting Wedding Photographers
This particular story, passed on to me by a reader: Cary Talbot, is about how Wedding Photographers in the Salt Lake City, Utah area are having their gear stolen after on location wedding shoots, but everyone should read this story because seeing how they’re doing it may well save your gear. Here’s the link (thanks Cary for sending this one our way).

Review of Volume 3
I just ran across this review of  “The Digital Photography Book, Volume 3” over at Stephen’s Photography Tips. Here’s the link.

That’s it for today
Hope you have a great day, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for a Friday wrap up (and something really cute, too!)

Hi all,

It’s a real honor to be writing today, and I want to thank Scott and Brad for the bandwidth. I’d like to share a behind-the-scenes story about the most exciting project of my career.

I’m an adventure photographer in Aspen, Colorado. When I first picked up a camera 15 years ago, I was tickled at the idea of being paid to rock climb, ski and travel. I certainly didn’t get into photography to “make a difference.” Indeed, from a cynical bent, you could say that I shoot leisure sports — images of rich white people overindulging in the outdoors.

Last winter, however, I turned my lens in the other direction. My wife and I were about to adopt a young boy from Ethiopia. As I read about the country’s poverty crisis (it’s one of the 10 poorest places in the world, with a mind-boggling 5 million orphans), I had pangs of guilt over our decision. We were spending thousands of dollars to haul a child to America when, one could argue, the money could go much further keeping at-risk parents alive. If we really cared about the welfare of our new boy or his Ethiopian peers, wouldn’t it be better to keep his family healthy and fed in the first place, rather than opportunistically adopting him as an orphan?

Sadly, that option wasn’t possible in the case of our boy, but along the way I learned about some impressive work the adoption agency was doing to help stop the orphan crisis. Wide Horizons For Children runs a nonreligious humanitarian-aid program that builds health clinics, clean-water projects and schools; and it sponsors destitute children and orphans to help them thrive in their home communities, rather than being placed for adoption.

Like many nonprofits, Wide Horizons’ work is world-class but their marketing materials are anything but. Poorly lit snapshots comprised the bulk of their campaign. I volunteered to shoot a multimedia fundraiser, documenting Wide Horizon’s outreach in Ethiopia’s remote and hard-hit communities.

And that’s how I found myself in northern Ethiopia’s war zone of Rama last December, one of the poorest regions on earth. Here, I faced an entirely real marketing question: What type of images or video would compel donors to open their wallets?

Before I left, a friend at Stanford University’s Center For Social Innovation shared a fundraising secret. It turns out that donors are moved not by staggering statistics or photos of mass suffering, but by an image of a single human being. People feel helpless when confronted with the enormity of Africa’s need (and for good reason) — yet when presented with the story and portrait of one individual whose life can be directly improved, checks are signed.

That simple fact became my creed — get in tight and focus compassionately on every person I shot. I brought two Canon 5D Mark II cameras, four lenses, a tiny carbon-fiber tripod and a CompactFlash audio recorder. I alternated between shooting stills and video whenever one seemed more powerful than the other, and used the week to learn video skills. (You can judge whether I chose stills vs. video appropriately in the final video below — I am sure there are always better ways!). I traveled with local Wide Horizons workers, Ethiopians who had grown up in the very villages we were working in, who translated our interviews.

To start, I wanted to introduce Ethiopia as a beautiful country, one with rich culture and tourism. So I shot scenes like this.

I next wanted to introduce hardship and poverty on an individual level, using faces like this one of 12-year-old Frehiwot Abera to hit the point home. Frehiwot lives in Rama, a town ravaged by war, famine and AIDS. She lost both of her parents before she was 5, and lives with her unemployed aunt.

Frehiwot is one of the “lucky” ones fortunate enough to receive a child sponsorship through Wide Horizons. An American family spends about $1 per day to help provide her with food, school fees and economic counseling that has helped her launch an entrepreneurial venture of raising sheep and chickens for sale. Frehiwot’s story of hardship, and her economic turnaround, moved me to tears.

Yet for every sponsored kid, there are many more in need. To succeed in my goal, I had to find a way to show donors a compelling reason to give more. That’s when my job got hard.

I introduced myself to sick, destitute people on the street, and asked if I could take their pictures. I felt like an ambulance chaser, a paparazzi of the poor. Entire streets of people would stop to stare at me as I lay down next to an ailing woman on the sidewalk and trained my lens on her. The only thing that carried me through these humbling, self-conscious shoots was the hope that my images just might hit home with potential donors.

I shot 20-year-old Bethlehem Demesy and her 4-year-old son Nahom in a landfill, where home is an overturned dumpster. Bethlehem’s parents died in her early teens; begging and prostitution for pennies have provided her only means of survival, placing her at extreme risk for HIV infection. (In a country with 30% unemployment, there’s no “career center” for orphaned teens to turn to). I pray that Bethlehem’s story will encourage donors to see the impact that a child sponsorship could have for a teenage girl at risk.

Finally, I wanted to show the powerful work Wide Horizons was doing to build health clinics, schools and water systems. This was the fun part, as the townspeople were bubbling over with excitement about the projects. Shooting in Ethiopia was the greatest adventure-travel trip of my life — the agency workers introduced me to wonderful people whom I never would have met as a tourist.

I returned home with a week’s worth of material (and an Ethiopian son named Masamo; my wife joined me in Addis Ababa after the shoot for the adoption). As a stills photographer, I had NO idea what I was getting into with producing a multimedia video. Who knew it was a hundred times more work than editing stills?!

Salvation came, as it always seems to do, in an unexpected way. At a commercial portfolio review last winter with Kari Niessink, the head art buyer at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, I told her about my Ethiopian project. Kari championed my cause, asking her colleagues Alex Bogusky and David Rolfe if they could produce the video pro-bono. (CP+B is arguably the country’s top ad agency, having been named “Ad Agency of the Year” 12 times.) They said yes — I couldn’t believe my luck!

CP+B integrated editor Nick Schneider and producer Liisa Juola did the heavy yet graceful lifting in bringing the video to life. All told, CP+B donated approximately 200 hours of time to the project.

I debuted the 7-minute video at Wide Horizons’ fundraiser in Boston and New York, where it garnered pledges for over $300,000 to construct new health clinics.

In the process, I realized that as photographers and designers, we are blessed with the skills to create campaigns that will raise far more money than we could ever donate personally.

If you’re still reading this blog, the video is viewable below. There is a larger-res version on my website, and more stories, here.

I offer my sincere thanks to the people who opened their homes and shared their life stories for this project. Meeting those Ethiopians who have endured overwhelming hardship has filled me with an unshakable humility. It was the greatest honor of my life.

-Tyler Stableford
tylerstableford.com
tylerstableford.com/news

Hi Folks, and greetings from 37,000 feet, somewhere over Pennsylvania (courtesy of Delta’s new in-flight ‘go-go” wi-fi Internet service). I’m totally beat, so I’m gonna keep this one short and sweet (that way, I can take a nap before I have to change planes for the 2nd leg back home).

Philly rocked!
First, thanks to everybody (nearly 600 of you), who came out to my Philadelphia seminar yesterday. What a great group to present to! It’s been years since I’ve been to Philly, but I’ll make sure it’s much shorter before my next visit!

Adobe has a challenge
After teaching this seminar in Boston and now Philadelphia, it has really become even more clear to me that there’s just a ton of confusion about the differences between Lightroom and Photoshop. Most of the photographers I talked to yesterday already use Lightroom, but the ones that didn’t, have no idea what Lightroom really does. Most told me they didn’t need it because they thought Lightroom is just a replacement for the Bridge, and virtually none of them had any idea that Lightroom’s Develop module IS Camera Raw. Adobe really has a challenge in getting the word out about the differences between the two, and how they work together, and when you use which and for what.

Eric got a Cheetah Stand
Remember last week when I talked about the Cheetahstand collapsing lightstand? I asked for your comments about how you might use the stand, and well, part of the reason was; I had an extra Cheetahstand, and I thought I would choose one of the folks that took to the time to comment to have that free stand, and that person was Eric Dousay from Little Rock Arkansas. Eric, your stand is on its way!

Photoshop User TV
We’re scheduled to shoot the first episode of our new season of Photoshop User TV today (yes, the set is finally done), and if all goes well, it’ll air next week. In the meantime, you can check out some of the mini-highlight episodes we’ve been posting, along with our “Live from Photoshop World” episode at PhotoshopUserTV.com.

Some amazing photos from China’s 60th Anniversary of Communist Rule
One of my readers’s sent me this link to Boston.com’s article with photos from China’s celebration marking their 60th anniversary, and the photo are amazing (it’s a mixture of beautiful color, and lots of scary-looking military hardware at the same time). It’s definitely worth seeing (though it might make you sleep a little uneasy). Here’s the link.

Tomorrow’s Special Guest Blogger is….
…one kick-butt adventure photographer; and Canon Explorer of Light, Tyler Stableford.

You guys probably remember me raving about Tyler’s work after seeing his presentation in Canon’s booth at Photo Plus Expo in New York, and then Brad took it upon himself to quickly contact Tyler and see if he would do us the honor of being a Guest Blogger here, and son-of-a-gun if we don’t have him here tomorrow. How cool is that! (Way to go, Braddo!). I’ll be here checking it out myself tomorrow, but in the meantime check out Tyler’s portfolio right here.

That’s it from 37,00 feet
Hope you all have a fantastic Tuesday!!!

Just a quick update on who’s teaching where this month:

Joe McNally’s smash hit “Location Lighting” seminar comes to:

• Los Angeles: Friday, November 6th
• New York City: Thursday, November 12th

Here’s the link with details.

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I’ll be teaching my “Photoshop Tour for Digital Photographers” in:

• Tampa, Florida: Monday, November 16th

Here’s the link for that tour.

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The Photoshop Down & Dirty Tricks Tour (with Corey Barker) comes to:

• Chicago: Friday, November 13th
• San Francisco: Wednesday, November 18th
• Seattle: Monday, November 23rd

Here’s the link for details.

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Ben Willmore’s “Photoshop CS4 for Digital Photographers” tour comes to:

• Sacramento, California: Monday, November 9th

Here’s the link with details

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RC Concepcion is bringing our “Creative Suite 4 Unleashed!” Tour to:

• San Diego, California: Friday, November 20th

Here’s the link with details.

Hope to you see guys when we come to your town!

Hi Gang: As you’re reading this, I’m in Philadelphia for my “Photoshop Tour for Digital Photographers” seminar, but on my way to Philly, I headed up to Chicago for an NFL sideline shoot at the Chicago Bears vs. Cleveland Browns game on Sunday, with a couple of my buddies; Mike Olivella, and Alex Walker (That’s us above. L to R: Mike, me, and Alex at Soldier Field during the game).

It was perfect weather for a football game; around 55° with no wind, and all three of us had an absolute blast! I’ve included a few shots from the game (but I got into Philly around 12:30 am so I didn’t have a lot of time to go through all the shots yet), but here’s a few quickies and the details on the gear I used, and settings:

Gear
I used two bodies: A Nikon D3, and a Nikon D300s. My main camera was the D3, and with it I used a 200-400mm f/4 mounted on a Gitzo carbon fiber monopod. My secondary camera was the D300s, where I switched between a 70-200mm, a 50mm f/1.4 (used mostly when the play moved inside the 10 yard line), and the occasional fish-eye lens for stadium shots (see below). I carried my gear using a Think Tank Photo modular belt system and used a Black Rapid R-Strap on the D300s (since it wasn’t mounted on a monopod). I also usually lose my Lens Hood once or twice during a game, so Brad finally got me a screw-on, rubber lens hood which worked great.

Mike and Alex are both Nikon shooters, too, and Alex was shooting a D300 with a 300mm f/2.8 lens that he got from the Paul and great folks over at LensProToGo.com (here’s the link—-I rent lenses from them myself, and I highly recommend them).

Settings
I shot in JPEG mode (to get the most frames per second), and I left the 200-400mm wide open at f/4 all day (to get as shallow a depth of field as possible to help separate the players from the background). I shot in High-Speed shooting mode, and set my focus to Continuous as well. It was a day game, so my white balance was set to Auto most of the day (until the field got in shadows, then I changed the white balance to shade), and I shot between 280 and 400 ISO (a little higher than usual because there was a thick cloud cover most of the day).

Anyway, it was an awful lot of fun spending the day shooting with a couple of buddies, plus I got to try out some of the tips I picked up from Sports Illustrated’s Peter Read Miller as well, which were a big help.

My thanks to everybody at the wonderful Bears organization (Go Bears!), and now I’ve got to get back to my seminar (the next one’s in Tampa, Florida in just over two weeks, on November 16th, so come on down and hang out for the day!).

Do you guys remember when I did a video clip about a light stand that was perfect for wedding photographers because as soon as you lift it up, the legs collapse inward, so sliding it in/out of a church pew was a total no-brainer, and getting in tight places where you normally wouldn’t think of putting a light stand? (here’s that video clip—if you watch it, it’ll all make total sense). Anyway, it was called the Kwik Stand, and a lot of photographers snapped them up, and fell in love with them.

Sadly, the company that invented them closed last year (unrelated to the success of the Kwik Stand), but the good news is; another Kwik Stand lover has not only licensed the technology, but has improved upon it and is now offering their version of the stand, called a “Cheetahstand.” We just got a couple in the studio in the past few weeks, and they’re awesome. (Here’s the link for more info. They’re $89.95 with free shipping in the continental US).

I’ve only used them for Wedding shoots so far, but if you guys have any other ways these might be used, let me know (there just might be something in for you if you come up with something really practical). Anyway, watch the video (link above), then if you’ve got other ideas for how you might use this stand, let me know by posting a comment here on the blog.

One more thing: NAPP members get $10 off. (Hey, 10 bucks is 10 bucks!)