I’m just back from the Professional Photographers of Canada national convention in Vancouver and my brain is busting! I’m sure many of you have had this happen to you after you attend a convention or seminar in your field of expertise so you know what I’m talking about. I had a few “duh” moments when the painfully obvious (yet somehow missed) was pointed out, a couple of “Eureka!!” moments that have the potential to be game-changers and one “I told you so moment” that is so very exciting and scary all at the same time. I also had some proud moments when I had two Accreditation submissions accepted, making me Nationally Accredited in my portrait specialties.
The PPOC convention had speakers on a little bit of everything for photographers who have or want to have, a photography based business. There were seminars on business, wildlife, stock, families, children, videography, photoshop editing, painting,etc and there was also the judging of submissions for National Accreditation in various categories of portraiture and photography. For me the seminar on video and cinematography was the most inspiring, exciting, “how do I absorb all this info” session of the week yet it also contained the “I told you so” moment. At a similar event in 2006, after I had been completely digital for seven years, during a conversation with colleagues I made the bold statement that “within ten years professional photographers will be using video cameras for their sessions and weddings and simply pulling out the perfect video frame to use as their digital negative to make printed portraits”. I pretty much got laughed out of the conversation and that was that. Fast forward to last week when one of the speakers showed us a video of an Australian photographer using a new Canon DSLR with 4G video on a safari in Africa. When they returned they proceeded to select the best video frames and make prints(they looked to be about 16×20″!!) Is this a good change? or a bad change? – you could make arguments either way but it is change and it is coming whether you like it or not.
I also met many new professional photographers, both young and older, made new friends and picked up a multitude of new ideas, concepts and practices which will help me get better and serve my clients better. I am currently “downloading” all of this from my brain to prevent it from exploding and once this is complete I will be looking for some volunteers to model and some volunteers to simply evaluate and provide their opinions on some new ideas and and some older ones too! I hope many of you will be willing to participate in this exciting future.
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