Robert Seale Photography Blog » Speaking events

Lighting Workshops at Photoshelter Luminance conference

Robert — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:47:45 +0000

Our model, rhythmic gymnast Olga Karmansky. (Photo by Robert Seale)

I returned recently from speaking and doing a lighting workshop at the Photoshelter Luminance conference, September 11-13 at the TriBeca Performing Arts Center in New York City. Luminance was far from a typical photo industry conference or convention. Photoshelter founder Allen Murabayashi and the great folks at Photoshelter put together a unique event, bringing in a wide variety of speakers from the technology world to compliment the usual suspects from the photo industry.

On the bill for the three day event were interesting and varied speakers like:

Eric Cheng, DP at Lytro; Lucas Allen Buick, Hipstamatic CEO; Chris Chabot, Google ; Amy Dresser, retoucher; Sara Friedlander, VP of Christie’s; Eileen Gittins, CEO/Founder of Blurb; Taylor Jones, Dear Photograph; Craig Peters, Getty Images; Donald Pettit, NASA Astronaut; Alan Taylor, The Atlantic; Cory West, Engineering Manager, Facebook, and also wonderful photographers like Peter Yang, David Burnett, Barbara Davidson, and Michael Muller. Each speaker gave a short, 20 minute eye opening talk in the spirit of the TED conference.

On the first day of the event, held at ROOT Drive in Studios, in NYC, I, along with lighting genius Joe McNally, Atlanta commercial photographer Zack Arias, and Miami celebrity portrait photographer Brian Smith, held lighting workshops in separate studio spaces there. (Bill Cramer, a Philadelphia photographer and founder of Wonderful Machine gave a separate session on business practices.)

The most overqualified assistant ever? Photoshelter Chairman Allen Murabayashi helping us get our lighting setup together. (Photo by Robert Seale)

I felt super intimidated to speak and do my little demo in such good company, but I was very lucky to have some super overqualified assistant help, including Photoshelter folks Allen Murabayashi, Sarah Jacobs, and stellar music photographer Chris Owyoung helping out.

Our model, Olga Karmansky, a rhythmic gymnast, was wonderful and patient during two back to back lighting sessions. We had a short window of time, so we concentrated on doing multiple lighting looks from one setup in the studio. We were able to create several different looks without moving the model at all – very similar to the lighting talk and demo I gave at the Photoshelter event in Austin.

Allen and Photoshelter CEO Andrew Fingerman put together a hell of an event. It was wonderful to hang out with the other photographers and speakers, especially a speakers dinner on the first night, and a wonderful get together with my good friends: bay area baseball photographer Brad Mangin, and Boston commercial photographer and ASMP president Shawn Henry. It was also great to meet the young, super sharp and vibrant Photoshelter team, many of whom I had talked to over the phone over the years, but never met in person. These are creative, smart people that you wish you could work in an office with every day.

Hopefully Andrew and Allen will be able to make this an annual event!

Close up of Olga Karmansky during the lighting demo. (Photo by Robert Seale)

Olga, photographed with a 5 degree grid during the lighting demo. (Photo by Robert Seale)

Allen introducing the speakers. (Photo by Michael Treola)

Shaking hands with Joe McNally arriving at the studio. (Photo by Michael Treola)

McNally shooting in the studio downstairs. (Photo by Michael Treola)

Seale shooting during the lighting workshop. (Photo by Michael Treola)

Zack Arias speaking to his class. (Photo by Michael Treola)

Brian Smith speaking during his lighting workshop - note the model is ASMP president Shawn Henry. (Photo by Michael Treola)

Robert Seale speaking at Rich Clarkson Sports Photography Workshop

Robert — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:36:33 +0000

Stacy Geare, Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado. © Robert Seale

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been asked back to the Photography at the Summit Sports Photography Workshop July 19-24. I’ve been a lecturer at the workshop 4-5 times, but it’s been several years since I’ve attended. The Summit Series of Photography Workshops were founded by legendary photographer and editor Rich Clarkson, who in addition to running Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper photo staffs in Denver and Topeka, was also Director of Photography at National Geographic during the 1980′s. I’m looking forward to working with Rich’s great staff and helping out the students there as they embark on assignments at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

This year’s staff also includes good friends and colleagues like former Seattle Times staffer Rod Mar, Sports Illustrated staffer John McDonough, New York Times Photo Editor Brad Smith, AP staffer Mark Terrill, and his brother Joey Terrill, who does fabulous work for Golf Digest and a variety of magazines.

Colorado Springs has some fantastic locations and is one of my favorite places to visit. Should be a great week! You can register for the workshop here.

Adobe Photoshop Presentation in San Francisco

Robert — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 17:19:17 +0000

I feel very humble and fortunate to have been asked to speak at the Adobe “Photoshop and You” Experience last week in San Francisco. Adobe set up a “pop-up store” at 550 Sutter St., adjacent to Union Square, and filled it with all sorts of interactive programs. Participants could walk in, free of charge and have their photos retouched by Adobe experts, get lessons in Photoshop and Lightroom, and have dog-tags and t-shirts printed featuring their own photos.

Although I’ve been featured on the Adobe website before in their Customer Showcase/Adobe Success Story section, this is the first time I had spoken at an Adobe event in person. I gave a slide show and presentation of my sports portrait photography on Monday, July 25. The event is ongoing through August 6, and will feature many other presentations by awesome photographers and educators like Corey Rich, Brad Mangin, Seth Resnick, Peter Krogh, Scott Kelby, and Glen Wexler. You can also meet photoshop developer gurus like (Dr.) Russell Brown, Russell Williams, Seetharaman Narayanan, and Winston Hendrickson. It was a bit intimidating showing my work and talking about my experience with Lightroom and Photoshop in front of the actual developers. After the show, I was showing some Lightroom tips to a friend of mine who attended the presentation, and I turned around to see Seetharaman watching us. I told him, “Wow, this is like Picasso watching a kindergarten kid finger-paint, right?”

Lighting Workshop at the UPAA Symposium

Robert — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 05:03:44 +0000

A modern dancer from BYU, photographed with a Plume Wafer Hexoval 180.

Back in June, I had the good fortune to be invited to speak at the 50th annual University Photographers Association of America (UPAA) Symposium in Utah. The UPAA is comprised of photographers who work on staff for universities. I get a little more nervous when speaking to seasoned professionals rather than college students.

Brigham Young University was the host for this years’ event, and two of my favorite photographers, Canon Explorer of Light Art Wolfe and Donald Miralle were also on the bill this year. Not bad company!

My portion began with a morning lecture on the BYU campus in Provo. After lunch, the convention moved three hours south, to Bryce Canyon National Park. Once there, my old Sporting News colleague August Miller, (who is now a Salt Lake City commercial photographer), and I scouted quickly for suitable locations for an evening lighting demonstration. We had to find locations that were attractive, but that could also accomodate 80 or so photographers. We chose to stay around Red Canyon, adjacent to Bryce Canyon because of the crowd.

Our hosts, BYU photographers Mark Philbrick and Jaren Wilkey arranged for a wonderful modern dancer to help us out by posing for our sunset demo.

I really enjoyed teaching at the workshop and meeting all the professional university photographers from all over the country and from as far away as Australia and Israel. Mark and Jaren put on a first class event.

A long exposure, mixed with strobe in a running stream creates a ghostly effect.

Robert Seale lighting workshop webinar posted

Robert — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:25:01 +0000

A video of the lighting workshop webinar presentation Photoshelter founder Allen Murabayashi and I recently took part in is now available. The video features our live webinar from March 31st in which we discussed my lighting demo shoot with Michael Scott Creature from the SXSW festival in Austin last month. Taylor Jones, the owner of Texas Grip, provided us with a fabulous grip truck stocked with Profoto gear for our demo shoot.
http://vimeo.com/10597263
The video has made the rounds among many of my favorite photography websites, including, David Hobby’s Strobist site, Rob Galbraith.com, and even the Profoto blog.

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Photoshelter Webinar: Lighting it up in Austin

Robert — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:22:10 +0000

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at SXSW in Austin at an event sponsored by Photoshelter. At the end of the seminar, we did a quick lighting demo with a local Austin musician, and we’ll share those photos, the planning, and the thought process that went into the demo this Wednesday night, March 31 from 6-7pm Central Time during a live webinar at Photoshelter.com. I hope you can join us.

Taylor Jones, a fabulous Austin digital tech (and owner of Texas Grip) provided support with live capture during the event, and provided most of the lighting equipment from his magically awesome grip truck. We were assisted by good friends Nathan Lindstrom, Todd Spoth, Will Rutledge, and Andrew Loehman. Profoto also helped out by loaning us some additional equipment for the event.

We thought it would be interesting to show a scenario that happens all too often in our business: How to deal with a subject with limited time in a single location. Planning and choreographing your shoot ahead of time and utilizing different lighting tools can make all the difference and can give your art director more setups to choose from.

We really lucked out by landing a great musician and artist to be our muse for the shoot: Michael Scott Parker, of Creature Rock. Michael used to live in San Francisco, and has been photographed numerous times by the trinity of rock and roll photographers: Michael Zagaris, Baron Wolman, and the late, great, Jim Marshall. She was great to work with, and I hope to shoot with her again soon.

Lighting Talk/Demo at SXSW in Austin

Robert — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 07:36:13 +0000

I’ve been asked to participate in an exciting event coming up on Saturday, March 13 in Austin, Texas. Photoshelter, the premier company helping photographers with websites, sales and marketing tools, file delivery and secure image archiving is putting together an exciting photo workshop in conjunction with the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference.

Allen Murabayashi, the CEO of Photoshelter will be presenting a program on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for photography websites. Allen and his colleague Grover Sanschagrin have studied photo websites and SEO more than anyone on the planet. (They are also two of the smartest people I know). If you haven’t checked out their FREE pdf reports on SEO, social media, and photography websites, then you’re just plain nuts. This will be a great presentation.

I’ll deliver a talk/slideshow showing a wide-ranging body of work, and talk about transitioning through different phases of a photography career. I started in newspapers, migrated to a magazine staff job, and then went out on my own as a commercial photographer. I’ll talk about each phase, the challenges of a changing marketplace, and (of course) show lots of photographs.

After a quick lunch break, there will be a panel discussion with my two of my good friends: stellar photographer, and BBQ buddy Darren Carroll (probably the best golf photographer in the world, and a helluva portrait shooter, too), and Taylor Jones (a fellow photographer who has made a name for himself as a super high-end digital tech, who works all over the country for some of the biggest names in the advertising world). Local photogs (who I don’t know personally – but am looking forward to meeting) Eric Hegwer, and Jack Hollingsworth will also be on hand to complete the panel. Together we’ll discuss both the art and business of photography.

At the end of the day, we’ll have a live photo shoot/lighting workshop. I’ll answer some lighting questions, talk about portrait concepts, research and planning. I’ll show you how to pull off a quick portrait shoot with a variety of looks in one location. Taylor will be on hand to demonstrate how a great digital tech operates. It should be a lot of fun, and I’m excited that they’ve asked me to participate.

The event will be from 11-4, at The Long Center for the Performing Arts, 701 West Riverside, Austin, Texas on Saturday, March 13, 2010.

Looking forward to seeing lots of folks there!

Sports Photography Presentation at ASMP Boston

Robert — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:45:48 +0000

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be giving a sports photography slide show presentation Tuesday, February 9th for the New England chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). My good friend and colleague, Damian Strohmeyer, a longtime Sports Illustrated staff photographer, will also be presenting that night, and I’m very proud to be on the same bill with him.

Damian will focus more on his sports action work, and I’ll be showing sports portrait work.

Here’s a link to the event on the official ASMP New England website.

The event will be held at E.P. Levine, 23 Drydock Ave., Boston, Massachusetts, on Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 7:00PM.

Hope to see you there!