WPPI Las Vegas 2010 ©2010 Am Ang Zhang
I was at the WPPI Convention in Las Vegas. No, this was not a medical conference. I have retired from the medical profession.
Last year I was at the PDN (Photo District News) Photo Expo in New York, and now the WPPI(Wedding & Portrait Photographers International). It has to be any photographer’s dream.
There was simply too much to take in, and I shall only give you some of my favourites.
Cliff Mautner: What an amazing photographer! He was a photojournalist and then became a wedding and portrait photographer. I have picked a link to his online non-wedding folio.
Now a journalistic approach is used in Wedding and Portraiture. This sounds familiar to a Child Psychiatrist who has applied the same approach in his case history taking.
Their style: a smooth blend of documentary and fine art. Just have a look.
Lindsay Adler: A young lady photographer with such a passion for photography that it came through her talk. She gave extremely useful practical advice on new media & social networking for photographers. Her book on the subject is due to be published in May.
As a Nikon user myself, I was interested to see that Canon seems to have moved ahead of Nikon in terms of technology. They were indeed the first to move into full frame format.
Canon and Nikon both had interesting speakers although the Canon stand was more than twice the size of Nikon’s. Nikon is now trying to catch up with Canon.
Improvement in Digital Technology has meant that even The Cockroach Catcher who was a film and darkroom amateur photographer now concedes that digital can do more, much more and in less time. Also digital technology now enables photographers to create pictures that they could not have dreamt of creating before. Cliff Mautner’s presentation on The Marriage of Creativity and Technology was most impressive.
Many speakers advised photographers to hone their skills by street shoots, and to get comfortable with Photoshop. I totally agree as I love shooting street scenes and have been using Photoshop from Day 1.
I will leave you with a selection of my street and studio portraits from the pre-digital era.
Studio Study/©1995 Am Ang Zhang
I have often been asked by parents what profession their children should go into now that finance is no longer the first choice and not everyone wants to be a lawyer.
A doctor? Sure, if you live across the pond.
What else then? A photographer! Indeed I might say that now. There has never been a greater demand for artistic photography.
Of course you will need the talent and the “seeing eye”. Technology cannot do it all for you.
Las Vegas 2010 ©2010 Am Ang Zhang
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