ADOBE LIGHTROOM AND THE FINE ART DIGITAL PRINT WORKSHOP 2010

October 7-10, 2010
Workshop Leaders: Andy Biggs and Michael Clark
Location: Hotel Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico

About The Workshop

This 4-day workshop will be a combined classroom workshop with outdoor photographic shoots. The workshop coincides with the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, which is the world’s largest balloon festival and will certainly be one of our photographic destinations. All classroom instruction will be centered around Adobe Photoshop Lightroom v3.x, as well as the craft of creating a fine art digital print.

Workshop Schedule

Day 1 - Morning
Lightroom introduction. The modules: Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print and Web

Day 1 - Afternoon
Portrait lighting sessions Part I, outdoors

Day 2 - Morning
Dawn Patrol: Early morning shoot at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Day 2 - Afternoon
Lightroom and the Develop module

Day 3 - Morning
How to select inkjet papers
Printing from Lightroom and Photoshop

Computers will not be provided but participants with laptops are encouraged to bring them. Following along on your own laptop is a hands-on way of learning what is being taught in the classroom.

Day 3 - Afternoon
Portrait lighting sessions Part II, indoors

Day 4 - Morning
Dawn Patrol: Early morning shoot at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Day 4 - Afternoon
Hands-on printing with current large format printers on the market. Paper provided by Moab Paper.
Participants leave with one fine art print of their own work!

About the Instructors
Andy Biggs is an avid adventurer, conservationist, teacher, and outdoor photographer whose photography celebrates the African landscape and its rich wildlife, people, and culture. With a deep respect and understanding for African wildlife, Andy unfolds the world of the Serengeti onto our doorstep with striking emotional depth. His photographic safaris allow the traveler to not only enhance their understanding of photography, lighting, and wildlife, but to develop a life-long admiration for Africa 's beauty and culture.

Michael Clark is an internationally published outdoor photographer specializing in adventure sports, travel and landscape photography. He produces intense, raw image of athletes pushing their sports to the limit and has risked life and limb on a variety of assignments to bring back stunning images of rock climbers, mountaineers, kayakers and mountain bikers in remote locations around the world. He contributes to National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, Sports Illustrated, Outside, Men's Journal, Backpacker, Outdoor Photographer, Digital Photo Pro, Climbing, Alpinist, Rock and Ice, Bike Magazine and The New York Times among many others. You can see Michael's work at www.michaelclarkphoto.com.

The Cost
The cost of this workshop is $1250 per person (inclusive of light breakfasts either in our teaching space or in the field). The same rate applies for each participant regardless of whether they are doing photography and participating in the workshop, or not. A nonrefundable deposit of $350 is required to secure your spot on the workshop. Final balance will be due no later than September 1, 2010.

Please note: We will attempt to adhere to this itinerary as much as possible. However, certain conditions, such as bad weather, may necessitate changes in the itinerary. We reserve the right to alter any itinerary at any time, if necessary.

Accommodations
The classroom portion of the workshop will be held at the Hotel Santa Fe. We have negotiated a group rate that is discounted from their advertised prices if you would like to stay at Hotel Santa Fe. Please inquire if interested.

Transportation
Most major airlines service Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is approximately 60 miles south of Santa Fe. Once in Albuquerque, you can take one of the many shuttles to your hotel in Santa Fe. Shuttle costs are approximately $25 - $30. Rental cars are available in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and from the hotel. The Hotel Santa Fe is located in downtown Santa Fe, within walking distance to shopping, restaurants and entertainment.

We do not provide transportation during the workshop. Please plan ahead and reserve a rental car. Of course, we will share vehicles and car pool to make life easier for all of us. We are not responsible for reimbursement of non-refundable airline tickets in the event of a workshop cancellation.

Workshop Materials
All participants will be given a copy of Michael’s e-book entitled Adobe Photoshop Lightroom:
 A Professional Photographer's Workflow, which details his complete workflow from start to finish.

You will need to bring the following equipment with you:
• a 35mm digital SLR camera with interchangeable lenses
• a laptop computer with a USB memory key, DVD or external hard drive. Instructors will be using Apple Computers.
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software installed on your computer (you can download the 30-day trial version of Lightroom before the workshop if you don’t already have the software.)
• Digital memory cards with a card reader (preferably CompactFlash or Secure Digital Cards)
• power adapters and cables for laptop and digital camera
• camera manual
• batteries and charger for rechargeable batteries

It is expected that you know how to download images from your camera to the laptop, know basic editing techniques using your software, and are able to organize the edited images for critique.

Registration
If this workshop has your name on it, then now is the time to register. Remember, there will be limited space available for this workshop. When they're spoken for, that's it. If you have any questions before registering, send us an e-mail with any inquiries to info@andybiggs.com. Register for the workshop on Andy Biggs' website here.

Testimonials from last year's workshop

"Thank you Andy and Michael for a wonderful, educational, experienced based workshop in Santa Fe. Today I reread my notes from the classroom work and have been amazed at how deeply informative it was. Michael's Lightroom Book as well as yours about digital printing have given me a whole new level of understanding especially around the Lightroom Develop module as well as on the entire topic of printing and color management. I really appreciate how you and Michael showed your individual processes for image workflow. Comparing and contrasting both methods allowed me to take the best of both and adapt them to fit my needs. My increase in knowledge along with the additional hands on guidance we got in the three photo sessions for aspen fall colors, Albuquerque Balloon Festival, and Abiquiu landscape site, will enable me going forward to make the best photos I'm capable of producing. Showing the class the image evaluation image printed on many different papers was most informative as was printing a few of our individual "best" photos from the week.

Andy, I've taken several photography seminars over the past few years. Without a doubt your's has been the most informative, well organized, openly sharing event I've attended.

Thanks again for all your help and guidance. It's clear you don't hold back when teaching and sincerely want all attendees to get as much out of the seminars as we're able to absorb."


"Andy & Michael - It was a pleasure to meet you both and I enjoyed the workshop a lot. I found Michael's well written e-book and in-class lecture on Lightroom very informative and I gained new insight it's operation features that I wouldn't have discovered on my own. The full printing workflow has always been a mystery to me, and thus I dismissed printing and never did much of it. When I first signed up for the workshop I considered the "fine art printing" aspect to not be the main reason why I attended, but this was the part of the workshop that I learned the most from - Andy's explanations and experience helped me to appreciate and better understand the full workflow from the proper paper selection (I didn't realize there were so many choices) to correct evaluation of output and will serve to encourage me to print more of my pictures.
Thanks for the great workshop!"
"Your workshop at Santa Fe was too good and I came away with a lot of knowledge and renewed energy. The level of expertise that you and Michael shared was topnotch and I hope to repeat this experience again. Thanks for such a great workshop!"

"..my mind is still spinning and I can't help but smile every time I think of the wonderful experience garnered from our workshop. Between what I learned from the two of you, as well as from my talented classmates - this was a great experience, and I would do it again."

The Straight Skinny

An excerpt from the Winter 2007 issue of the Michael Clark Photography Newsletter:

The more I look at recent photography trends the more I see Photoshop becoming an accepted reality in the photography market. I’m not saying Photoshop is bad or that manipulating your images is impure or anything. I see more and more images in magazines, ads and even newspapers that have been helped out in one way or another. The fact is that every image, digital or film, is manipulated in some way, shape or form. With film the film itself magically altered reality with deeply saturated colors and stark contrast built in. With digital the photographer basically takes a RAW image file and tries to make it look as the original scene did - albeit with a little more drama and warmer skin tones than really existed. And if that isn’t good enough then the image gets photoshop’ed (verb tense) to help it out. Is this a good thing? Is it sacrilege? Some photojournalists might think so but they do it too even though they would argue they don’t.

The truth is all photographs are skewed - images reveal the photographer’s view point just as much as a writer can imbue an article or a book with their own ideals. I can crop out the trash and poverty in an impoverished region or city and make it seem like paradise or I can focus on the poverty and change the entire message of the photograph. Photographs are like seeing the world through a keyhole. They only tell part of the story as everyone knows. But they can also bring worldwide attention to both good and bad in a way that few other mediums can.

Digital photography and the many methods we have of “developing” digital images has leveled the playing field to some degree so that everyone with the knowledge and a decent computer can alter their images to improve them - to make them more interesting and more arresting. When you get down to it, photographers are artists. And every artist loves to have a new tool to work with so they can create something they’ve never seen before. Photographers have had Photoshop for some time but the combination of Photoshop, digital cameras and the plethora of plug-ins and image manipulations tools are too tempting to ignore. In the end, it is all about the image. Save for the photojournalist - who should keep an image as it was shot for credibility sake - the rest of us are creative artists and any tools we can use to produce better work are an advantage.

The flip side of this is that images can be manipulated to look a million times better than they started out. I’ve looked at a few of the before and after images shot for huge commercial jobs and some of the before shots look like my Grandmother could have shot them with her point and shoot. It just goes to show you there are many ways to get a final image and many photographers aren’t doing all the work in-camera anymore.

If you'd liket o subscribe to the newsletter please email me at mjcphoto@comcast.net. Backissues of the newsletter are available for download here.

Michael's images featured on the Adobe Lightroom Website

Michael's images are featured on the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom website in the top tutorial (as in the image below) and they are also featured in the User Manual that comes with the software. These images wee shot on assignment for Adobe last April - see blog post below. To see the Lightroom instructional video with Michael's images visit http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/.

Michael signs on to be a blogger for Inside Lightroom

Michael was asked to become a contributor for O'Reilly Digital Media's new website Inside Lightroom. As a contributor, Michael will write and publish blog posts every Monday and he will also be writing extensive articles from time to time. Inside Lightroom is one of the top five Adobe Photoshop Lightroom websites and is sponsored by Adobe. The website will feature a huge amount of information and resources regarding using Adobe Lightroom as well as working with digital imaging in general. You can visit the Inside Lightroom website at http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/lightroom/.

About O'Reilly:
Since 1978, O'Reilly has been a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism. Long the information source of choice for technologists, the company now also delivers the knowledge of expert early adopters to everyday computer users. Whether it's delivered in print, online, or in person, everything O'Reilly produces reflects the company's unshakeable belief in the power of information to spur innovation.

Adobe Lightroom Podcast featuring Michael Clark

During my workshop on Digital Workflow (May 2006) here at the Santa Fe Workshops I recorded a Podcast in which I talked about my work with George Jardine of Adobe. The Podcast is available now on iTunes. To check out that Podcast go to iTunes and type in Adobe Lightroom in the search box and all of the Adobe podcasts will come up. My Podcast is entitled: Podcast #20 (Enhanced Podcast): Michael Clark.

The podcast is a lively discussion with George of some of my adventure images and includes those images in the podcast so the viewer can follow along. This is the first Podcast I have participated in and was a great experience and it is a great new form of marketing for my work. I also sat in while Nevada Weir, with whom I was teaching the Digital Workflow workshop for the Santa Fe Workshops, taped her Podcast. Look for her Podcast as well - she had some very interesting comments on her work and the state of photography and her images are amazing! George also gave a very informative and exciting preview of Adobe’s Lightroom for our workshop participants. It was great to see a demonstration direct from one of the creators - my workflow changed after his presentation! Thank you to George and Adobe for choosing myself and my work and for coming out to Santa Fe and participating in our workshop.

On Assignment for Adobe Lightroom

Michael recently shot demo files for Adobe’s new digital specific software named “Lightroom” currently in beta stage. For this assignment Michael was asked to shoot mountain biking and freeriding, an extreme form of mountain biking involving jumping off rather large cliffs and taking big risks. We chose Moab, Utah as our location and mountain bikers Ryon Reed, Ed Strang and Kathy Parent. We shot at Bartlett Wash, the Fin near the Porcupine Rim Trail and up on the Chili Pepper trails above Moab. It was an exhausting 24 hours of shooting up at 4 AM and out till 10 PM the night before.

Adobe needed a series of exciting images for the upcoming launch of Lightroom and we got a good sampling of extremely risky mountain biking images to satisfy their needs. In all we shot over 30 GB of images in a 24 hour period! That is over 3000 images with a Nikon D2x and D200. The images will be used on the box and a few will also be included with the software as sample images as well as to demonstrate the software.

It was a pleasure working with Adobe on this project! They gave me a lot of creative freedom to come up with exciting and visually stunning images. And I feel like I am ahead of the curve having used Lightroom extensively already and having had a personal demonstration by one of the Lightroom creators. Look for my Lightroom workflow later this year.

Read the enxtended article Behind the Scenes: On assignment for Adobe Lightroom.