RMSP Weekend

The RMSP Weekend in Denver is over and I have very high marks for it. Information was very valuable and the speakers were all very engaging keeping the atmosphere relaxed and light-hearted. I took many new ideas and techniques from it, there were many points that confirmed that I was taking right approaches to photographing certain scenarios (just now I know why it's the right way!), and some things just re-affirmed what (I thought) I already knew.

I arrived Saturday earlier than I expected and was able to get into the 2nd session of the day about 10 minutes late. Attended the "Beyond Basics" session from Doug Johnson. It was essentially a detailed review of ISO, Aperture, Shutter, etc. Got into color tones, metering, and, perhaps the most valuable, an insight into the histogram readings which is something I've been lacking.

The 3rd Saturday session attended was "Understanding Light" by Tim Cooper. This went into the details of base/neutral colors with photography, light temperature, reflection of light waves to generate light, forms vs. shapes, texture, and lighting angles. And also details about white-balancing including the custom setting (I never knew that existed) and the other WB settings and when to use them.

The 1st session Sunday I chose the "Photographing People" session presented by David Marx. This essentially got into Portrait vs. Environmental techniques, the differences, and subtle points of each that are important for success. Emotions, composition, direction of light, flash, and expressions were all touched on.

2nd Sunday session I attended was "Sports and Motion" again by David. Techniques and related results, preparation, difficulties, etc. were all touched on. Though I've never had great success with this type of photography, most of what was discussed was re-affirming that I knew what I was doing, and that my lack of success was due to not taking enough pictures, since the percentage of good shots is pretty low!

The critique was very interesting and entertaining. The three speakers critiqued and a lot more of their personality came out. They were very...shall I say...gentle...with their critiques in my opinion. But they kept it very relaxed and succeeding in never putting anyone on the defensive. My Teton photo was not included, but the ptarmigan photo was. It got very good review with the only mentioned flaw of sorts was the small leaf coming in from near the bottom left side.

So it was a very entertaining and educational weekend of photography. My only complaint of any sort is that they should try to extend the hours and offer many of the sessions a second time to acccommodate where one session was sacrificed in order to attend another. And I didn't win any of the great raffle prizes at the end. Their speakers were great and the level of content had basic concepts to advanced to hit most of the audience.

Now I just have to get out and use all this new knowledge! I did get out the camera and play with a few settings that I wasn't familiar with previously. But need a lot of practice to put all this information to use.

Photography Critique

So I've been working like a dog the past 5-10 days getting ready for a Monday morning presentation of Sharepoint to much of the company. Only have 15-20 minutes to talk about something that I could talk for 4 hours on and still not have it all covered. After Friday's walk thru, I still had to cut 10-15 minutes off the presentation, so a bit of practicing left to be done.
With the time I've spending on that, not much exercise achieved in that time. So Friday night went to the monthly tennis social - bunch of people get together, play tennis, meet some new people. Got some good matches in and burned some much needed calories. Saturday night is a date night for Cindy and I - meeting up with some folks I work with for dinner and whatever else.
Saturday morning is the 1st of 4 straight Saturday mornings that I have a class...more to be said on the class specifics another time. Because of this class, I will miss weeks 2-5 of Sarah's first time into the world of soccer, which sucks but needs to be done.

The big thing this weekend is a 2-day photography workshop being put on by Rocky Mountain School of Photography. I'll miss the Saturday morning sessions due to the previously mentioned class, but will make the rest of the weekend. Sessions I'm planning on hitting:

• Saturday Session III - Understanding Light


• Sunday Session I - Composition
**"Photographing People" is intriguing too!

• Sunday Session II - Sports And Motion
**contemplating "Sunrises, Sunsets & Flowing Water"

• Sunday Session III - Critique Session

I plan on submitting a couple of photos for the critique session. Here they are:

This was taken February of 2004 up at the top of Guinella Pass in Colorado. Found a flock of ptarmigans sitting in the snow and took a gob of photos of them. This was one of the most appealing.

Taken September, 2007, this is a southward looking view of Grand Teton from our North Cascade Valley campsite.

So hopefully I'll be on top of things and be able to post back with results from the critiquing, plus the Monday morning presentation! Meanwhile, feel free to offer up your own comments of the photos you see.

Lost Dog? Or Lost Owners?

So this is our family dog, Abby. She's a pointer mix. Pretty smart dog...most times. She has her moments. So Cindy and the kids take her for a walk recently to a nearby park with a sizeable off-leash area. Kids are running down the path playing, Abby is chasing around like she normally does. She finds a small dog to run with and takes off with the dog over a slope down towards the river area. No big deal - she always does this and eventually returns looking for one of us. Except this time...she doesn't come back into sight. Minutes pass, no sign of her. Cindy starts talking with other people that are coming by with their dogs and asking if they've seen Abby. She exchanges phone numbers with a few people, and one woman offers to meet back at the parking lot if she comes across Abby. I don't know exactly how long it was, but probably 10 minutes or so.

Eventually a ranger is driving thru the area so Cindy flags him down. She starts to tell him that she's lost our dog, when the Ranger cuts her short and asks "your dog is white with black markings?".
"Yes"!
"Well she's sitting in the parking lot beside your car"!

Sure enough - a return to the parking lot finds Abby sitting beside the car and not moving. Even when she sees Cindy and the kids and they call her, she didn't move. Upon getting close, it's found that Abby is shaking because she was scared from losing her family. Needless to say, Abby was just as happy to have her family come back to her as Cindy and the kids were to have found her. But give the dog credit for tracking down the car and waiting there until someone came back to her.

Now I hide on Abby occassionally when we're out at an off-leash area, just to see if she can find me. And she always does, and she always becomes more careful of keeping aware of where I am. So I've told Cindy that she shouldn't worry - it's unlikely that Abby will venture that far out of sight again, but even if she does, there's a good chance she'll figure out how to track us down, even if it's returning to somewhere she knows we'll go ourselves! So all is good, even if it did cause a few moments of...anxiousness.

Superhero? Not likely...

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