I’m really looking forward to my FIFTH straight year speaking for Sony at WPPI in Las Vegas. It’s one of my favorite photography trade shows because the whole show has such a positive vibe. In addition to the talks I’m doing at the Sony Booth, I will also be giving a platform talk on the ‘Secrets of Great Portrait Photography’ at 8am Tuesday, February 21st.

Great crowd at 'Secrets of Great Portrait Photography' WPPI 2011

Here’s my list of of can’t-miss seminars to see at WPPI 2012:

Sun, Feb 19, 2012 – 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM
So You Really Want To Be a Wedding Photographer?
Speaker: Cliff Mautner
Cliff Mautner, one of American Photo’s top 10 wedding photographers in the world, WPPI Grand Award winner, Nikon spokesperson and 30-year pro will talk straight about what it takes to succeed in this insane business, including insights about business, lighting and a lifetime in an ever-evolving industry. Cliff will share his work ethic, style of shooting and tell you how to develop your own. He’ll also share a ton of mistakes he’s made along the way, so you don’t repeat them. Be prepared to be inspired and educated in his straightforward, honest east coast style!

Sun, Feb 19, 2012 – 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Creative Portrait and Retouching Techniques
Speaker: Lindsay Adler
Creativity in your images extends into your Photoshop techniques. This class will help you take your creativity to another level and make your images even more eye-catching through your Photoshop techniques. In this session you will learn essential retouching techniques as well as a variety of tools to add a creative flair to your images in Photoshop. Learn essential retouching tools, retouching plugins, and the best way to approach your retouching workflow, including blemish removal, body reshaping, and feature enhancement. Understand how to add textures to your images, add borders, adjust coloration. And see a wide range of other beautiful and creative retouching techniques.

Mon, Feb 20, 2012 – 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM
Aperture Intensive
Speaker: Sara France
Apple regularly sends Sara around the world to train photographers in using Aperture, and now it’s your turn. In this program, she takes you through Aperture from start to finish, walking you through the workflow process while giving you tips and tricks along the way. From download, to adjustments, to album design, to export, Sara shows you all the basics and all the things you never knew were possible with this powerful program.

Mon, Feb 20, 2012 – 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM
Lab Printing with Lightroom: Color Management and Step-by-Step Workflow
Speaker: Andrew Darlow
Photo labs offer an array of products for the professional photographer, but one thing always remains constant—for great results, you’ve got to color-manage your system and prepare files properly. In this two-hour lecture, an award-winning author and photographer, Andrew covers the proofing and printing process for a range of lab printing products, including digital c-prints, canvas prints and press-printed products using a step-by-step approach. Learn how to set the resolution of images, inexpensively color-test lab products, batch-process images and more.

Tue, Feb 21, 2012 – 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM
New Secrets of Great Portrait Photography
Speaker: Brian Smith
Celebrity portrait photographer Brian Smith will share the lessons he’s learned over the past 30 years capturing the faces of the famous, infamous and unknown as a top magazine portrait photographer. He will discuss his approach to editorial and commercial assignments from concept to final images, and detailing his approach to lighting and problem solving on productions both small and large. He will share secrets about how to quickly capture the personality of the people in your photographs and will also discuss how personal projects can be used to generate editorial and commercial assignments.

Tue, Feb 21, 2012 – 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM
Telling Stories in Pictures
Speakers: Alan Weiner
We’ve all heard the term “wedding photojournalism,” but these days, it includes all different types of photography. At its core, photojournalism is the telling of a story through pictures. Alan spent 20 years working as a contract photographer for The New York Times, telling stories with his camera. Now, he applies the same tools he honed as a news photojournalist to tell the story of hundreds of brides and grooms. Come hear his approach!

Tue, Feb 21, 2012 – 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
How Knowledge of Cinema Storytelling Has Influenced Photography and Album Design
Speaker: Amina Moreau
Stillmotion knows that storytelling techniques aren’t really taught in post-secondary photography programs. As a part of a photo and cinema team, Amina has taken inspiration from the world of filmmaking and applied it to her stills. Cinema is about lifespan, sequencing, time-shifting, transitioning and creating an emotional response that photography often lacks. The principal goal of this seminar is to teach attendees how to apply a moviemaker’s eye to their photography and album design so it’s no longer about capturing memories your clients can see, but about creating sequences they can feel.

Wed, Feb 22, 2012 – 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM
Using Social Media Strategically: What Works vs. What is Just Noise
Speaker: Me Ra Koh
We are going to dive into what type of social media benefits a photographer’s business the most.  Do you need a static website if you have a blog?  Do you spend your time on Facebook and forget about a blog?  How important is Twitter to growing your business?  Or, do you already take advantage of these platforms and still don’t get the traffic you are looking for?  The question isn’t whether you need one platform over the other, but what is the purpose of each and will it help you meet YOUR specific business goals.  As a busy mom, business owner and photography expert for The Nate Berkus Show, hear Me Ra share what she’s found that makes sense for photographers in the social media world vs. what is noise.  Whether you are just launching a new business and trying to book clients or you’re an established pro wanting to expand your brand, Me Ra is going to leave you excited and empowered with a whole new juicy set of social media tools to grow your business, make you money and most of all, save you TIME!

Wed, Feb 22, 2012 – 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM
New Social Media for Next Generation Photographers
Speaker: Jack Hollingsworth
New and Social Media is upon us. In full force. In every direction. If you snooze, you lose. It’s that dramatic. It’s time to start thinking like a next generation photographer and not only explore, but exploit every single marketing tool and technology available to you.  Come and listen to veteran photographer, social media coach and consultant Jack Hollingsworth, speak on why he passionately believes that it’s the greatest time in history to be a working photographer.  Inspirational topics will include:  what social media channels work best for photographers, how to brand, market and promote yourself in a crowded marketplace, how and why iPhone photography is changing the game, and the top 10 resources and guides to help you become a marketing success.

Wed, Feb 22, 2012 – 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM
Storytelling in Stills & Motion
Speaker: Deanne Fitzmaurice
Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, Deanne Fitzmaurice will show how personal projects in the Digital Revolution can spark your creativity. She will discuss how she gains trust and access in challenging situations. With a forward-thinking approach to visual storytelling, Deanne will also discuss how she is using HDSLR video and audio to enhance the narrative of her stories. Some of the stories Deanne will show include her Pulitzer Prize winning story of an injured Iraqi boy and a multimedia piece about a Circus Sideshow performer at Coney Island.

When: Thursday, January 19, 2012
Time: 7:00pm until 10:00pm
Where: Hotel 43, 981 Grove Street, Longitude Room, Boise, Idaho
Cost: $15 General Admission, $10 AIGA, $5 Student, $0 ASMP

Description: American Society of Media Photographers Presents Brian Smith ‘The Future of Editorial Photography’ and ‘Turning Personal Photography Projects into Profit’

Pulitzer Prize-winning celebrity photographer Brian Smith will tell the story of his innovative personal book project, Art & Soul. Combining photographs of celebrities with their thoughts about art, Art & Soul demonstrates how photographers can creatively explore new business models to stay profitable in a changing market.

Brian, the president of Editorial Photography and an American Society of Media Photographers member, will also report on the latest developments in magazine photography, explaining how to maximize creative and commercial rewards while avoiding bad contracts and stagnant rates.

Seminar Topics:

• What you need to know about editorial that nobody told you
• How the shift to online content is affecting rates
• How to get and keep the attention of photo editors and art directors at top magazines
• How production value can make your work stand out
• How to charge properly for digital processing
• How to maximize re-licensing, syndication and reprint revenue
• Best strategies for a slow economy

Bring cash for sponsorship raffle items!

Sponsors: Scottevest & Bryant Ideas of Idaho

This hilarious informercial parody of Adobe Photoshop beauty retouching makes light of the standards of beauty in our society in this very clever video by Jesse Rosten introducing a new make-up line Fotoshop by Adobé. It’s a perfect send-off of all those late-night infomercials where the befores and afters seem to be nothing more than photoshopped versions of the same photos.

Then again, all I can say is, if only…

I’m not certain why I hadn’t seen it before, but I watched Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens on Ovation TV this weekend and it’s easily the best documentary about a photographer that I’ve seen. Whether you love her or loathe her (and there is rarely a middle ground when it comes to Annie) this documentary will definitely help you understand her.

Spanning five decades this documentary is a wonderful look at the evolution and career arc of an artist from her early reportage to her current mega-productions it’s loaded with insight not only into her success but also what makes her tick. Getting a backstage look at a photo shoot is always fun and with productions as large as these, it’s all the more interesting. Yet perhaps the most interesting thing is the opportunity to hear Annie, her subjects and her editors voice their thoughts about her greatest hits. It’s definitely worth a watch, so if you missed it of you just want to watch it again and again, order from Amazon.

Photography contests are a great way to advance your career and get the fame you deserve. Here’s my list of Ten Photography Contests worth entering in 2012. Enter early and often and good luck!

SONY WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS worldphoto.org/competitions
CONTEST SPECS: JPEG or TIFF no smaller than 800kb and no larger than 5mb
DEADLINE: January 6, 2012

WORLD PRESS PHOTO submit.worldpressphoto.org
CONTEST SPECS: 3000 pixels minimum length / sRGB, Adobe RGB or Gamma 2.2
DEADLINE: January 13, 2012 (Central European Time) / REGISTER by January 6, 2012

PICTURES OF THE YEAR INTERNATIONALL www.poyi.org
CONTEST SPECS: JPG high. 200-300 dpi 2,500 pixels or larger on the longest side
DEADLINE: January 12, 2012

THE BLACK & WHITE SPIDERS AWARDS www.thespiderawards.com
CONTEST SPECS: Grayscale or RGB JPEG maximum quality 72dpi, 1024 pixels longest side.
Name file: lastname-firstname_title.
DEADLINE: January 20, 2012

PDN PHOTO ANNUAL AWARDS www.pdnphotoannual.com
CONTEST SPECS: sRGB or Adobe98 JPEG measuring at least 1,000 pixels on its long dimension
DEADLINE: January 25, 2012

AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY www.ai-ap.com
CONTEST SPECS: JPG, 72 dpi, RGB, 1000 pixels on the longest side, up to 2MB
DEADLINE: January 27, 2012

BEST OF PHOTOJOURNALISM bop.nppa.org
CONTEST SPECS: RGB JPEG 6 or higher 250 DPI, 2750 pixels along its longest side NTE 2mb
DEADLINE: February 3, 2012

COMMUNICATION ARTS PHOTOGRAPHY commarts.com/competitions/photography
CONTEST SPECS: RGB JPG format – max width 1024 pixels and max height  768 pixels (72dpi)
DEADLINE: March 16, 2012

INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS www.photoawards.com
CONTEST SPECS: 800 pixels on the longest side saved as RGB Jpeg Not to Exceed 4MB
EARLY DEADLINE: April 30, 2012

PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERS CUP www.thecolorawards.com
CONTEST SPECS: RGB JPEG – Maximum quality, 72dpi resolution, 1024 pixels longest side
Name file: lastname-firstname_title
DEADLINE: May 25, 2012

I love this video of Ice Cube celebrating the LA Architecture of the Eames Case Study House in glorious Straight up Modernist black & white…

Check out The Daly Show: Episode 5 “The Daly Christmas” Written + Directed by Ben Shelton and starring Tim Daly and his son Sam Daly to see Tim get a copy of ART & SOUL from Sam. You can even get you own copy filled with inspiring messages about the arts from 123 stars. Just the perfect Christmas Gift for your budding superstar. You can even get your own copy of ART & SOUL signed by me if you stop by the Sony Store New York or Sony Store Century City.

Best part is that a portion of the proceeds from the book goes back to The Creative Coalition so they can continue to advocate for funding for the Arts. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving…

Congratulations to Sunrise, Florida’s own Melanie Amaro for her X Factor USA win. She’s got an amazing voice that took her to the top of a talent-packed group. Here’s Melanie’s favorite shot from the shoot I did when I appeared on X Factor to photograph all the finalists.

How cool that Melanie chose it for her Twitter Profile..

EQUIPMENT:
SONY NEX-5N
SONY NEX Electronic Viewfinder
SONY NEX Camera Mount Adapter LA-EA2
SONY CZ 85/1.4

LIGHTING:
K5600 800w Joker HMI Crossover Kit
Profoto 7′ Silver Parabolic Umbrella Style Reflector

iGotta say iLeica this i9 Concept Camera from Black Design Associates. Way cool way to trick out iPhone Photography… Make it happen!