I’m back from San Francisco. It was a great trip and so good to see my friends and meet new people. I attended the Google Plus Photography Conference that was run by Scott Kelby. Went on an official photowalk to Treasure Island and learned a few tricks about how to light people using a two then three speedlight flash units; one as master, one or more as slave(s). It was windy and cold. Surprise! But toward the end, the light got better and I’ve got a few good images to work on and share.
Later, I went on a Drink & Click photowalk that started in North Beach and ended in Chinatown. Ended for me. Several others stayed out much later and went to a couple more spots. I didn’t want to feel like crap the next day at the conference, so I left at a semi-reasonable hour. A very nice and good person gave me a lift back to my friend’s house to crash. Big thanks to Lotus Carroll and Juan Gonzales for setting up the photowalk and hosting a really great night out. Here’s a group shot.
I think I want to try to do some Drink & Click action in Salt Lake City. People who don’t drink would be welcome and under no obligation to drink. Any Salt Lake photographers who are reading this and have an interest, let me know via my contact page and we’ll set one up. Even if no one comes, I will be doing this through the summer because the after work light will be fantastic and hey, drinks and cameras. What can go wrong? Nothing!
Tentative agenda:
- Drinks (Dinner as well?) at a good starting point to be decided later
- Walk around and shoot
- End up at another drinking location
- Shoot some more
This isn’t about getting lit. It’s about socializing and relaxing. It was really great to loosen up and visit with people I’d seen and circled on Google Plus at this informal event. Seeing all the cameras parked on tables while people visited was something else. Fortunately, we all pretty much owned the bar space of the last spot we hit, so there was not a deep concern about losing a camera. I still kept mine on. Because I’m paranoid and uptight.
The image above is from this walk and is a detail of graffiti on the side of a van parked in Chinatown. Because the walk took place on Monday night, there weren’t too many people out and we could roam and shoot with relative ease. The streetlights added some nice ambience, but I was shooting at 3200 ISO pretty much the whole night.
I did some noise reduction in Lightroom and then took the image into Photoshop for some more trickery to pull up the spray paint details.
Daily affirmation: Great things happen when I let them.
