Happy Monday everyone!  I’m back from Photo Plus in NYC, and let me tell you, I was very excited to get out there and pound the pavement to check out the cool stuff that was at the Javitts Center. There were many things that I was excited about, and I’ll be talking about them very soon. Let me just give you a couple of the highlights: 

1.  Met up with my photography buddies Peterson, McNally, Ziser, Hobby, and many, many others.  It felt like a homecoming! (Or a prelude to the incomparable Photoshop World – where you can see many of them)

2.  Got to meet Jim Schmelzer and Mary Duprie over at Westcott .  I am a big fan of the TD5 spider lights, so any chance to go play with them is a good time.  Jim and Mary treated me to some great demonstrations on posing and lighting (chiseled..  that light was chiseled!).  Watching Mary teach about posing was just brilliant and, frankly, a breath of fresh air.  It’s often overlooked, but so important to stress, how much your ability to direct a model will shape the results of your shoot.  Wonderful stuff there.. thanks!

3.  Met up with my buddy Mark over at Elinchrom.  There are some GREAT things to tell you about there in the world of flash, so I am not going to spill that just yet.  I really want to dedicate some post time to that. 

4.  Saw a multitude of speakers at the Adobe, Canon, and Nikon Booths.  I even got to check out Vincent Laforet’s presentation on 580EX flashes, which was awesome. 

I took a Canon HF10 camera out for a spin and recorded some footage.  As soon as I put that footage together I’m going to post it here.  Matter of fact – I think it’s a good idea for me to post -how- I put that kind of stuff together.. so stay tuned for that. 

MS Publisher, or Quark to InDesign

This came across my desk, and I thought it important to share here.  Markzware is offering a 15% discount for people who purchase their software if you type in ‘convert’ at their website upon checkout.  Normally, I think to myself “Oh great.. I’ll keep that in mind” with things like this, but just last week, I got a CD in from a project that I am working on – REPLETE with MS Publisher designs that I needed to look over.  My first thought? “Um.. I’m using a Mac now.. this isn’t going to work”.  Then – panic.  I was able to sort it out, but having this installed on my computer last week would have saved me HOURS of work.  This is one of those pieces of software that will totally go unnoticed.. until you need it, and then .. man does it help.  Make sure you check them out.  If you do any print work with these programs, you owe it to yourself to be prepared.

Contest Time

Time for a contest.  Go to the Layers Magazine Contact section.  Fill out your name, email address, and the answer to the following question, and you can win a copy of Dave Cross’ Finishing Touches book, as well as a 1 year subscription to Layers Magazine!

The contest question:   What is the name of the author that reviewed the Space Navigator product on this website?

Contest ends at 5PM on Thurs, and the winner is announced Fri at 9am.  Good luck to all of you, and we’ll see you tomorrow!