ATPI Conference

This weekend I took a group of my photo students to the Association of Texas Photography Instructors Winter Conference at UTA. It was a great time and I and my kid left inspired. OK, well I left inspired and I hope the kids did too :)

There were tons of contests and workshops. Each attendee got to go to 2 hands-on sessions where they got to learn something new and then they had the opportunity to attend about 6 general sessions where professionals talked about everything from basic camera skills to marketing your work to lighting and photoshop. It's a great experience for the kids and I'm always impressed with the quality of speakers they have. Every kids get to have a one-on-one portfolio review as well. This years keynote speaker was top-notch too!

I'll start off with a few fun photos I took over the weekend.

First, my self-portrait from. Yes, I took my camera in the bathroom. Yes, people looked at me funny. No, I did not care.

Second, Lunch time!

Here are my wonderful kids. We have a tradition that on the Saturday of the photo conference we go to Bethany Boba Tea for lunch. That's the only day I go there and I honestly really like boba tea. After lunch we take a group photo in front of the restaurant and hang it up in class the next week.

So Kevin, Alexis, and Chen-Ching took an alternative processing class where they made cyanotypes. They had to take the paper or fabric coated in the emulsion outside and place it in the sun for about 5 minutes. They decided to o their profiles and had to stand like this for five minutes. Very fun. Especially with me taking their photo.

I love this picture. The repetition of crossed legs and the lines on the ground just makes me happy.

Processing the Cyanotype in the darkroom. Yes this is at H2 at 1/8 of a second at 2.8. The photo is brighter than it actually was in the room. The new cameras that can shoot at 12500 are pretty amazing!

The finished product.

I gave a presentation on Shooting Sports to a group of students on Saturday afternoon and Darrell Byers was kind enough to take a few photos for me to post.

I showed a 20 minute slideshow of image from my work at the Star-Telegram, Associated Press, Country Day and TCu gigs. Then we had about 40 minutes of Q&A. It was fun and the kids seemed interested. I was told my another teacher today that one of their kids said I was "really good". That was nice to hear.

The awards ceremony was today and although my kids didn't win a lot of awards...the few we did win were great. Chen-Ching got second place in the Digital Category of the Texas A&M Commerce Print Competition, and Alexis got Best of Show for her Horror DVD cover she created in an on-site Digital Editing competition. BEST OF SHOW!!!

This is a photo of her seconds after she got her award with the picture she created up on the screen behind her. I'll admit I did a little of my own digital editing to make this photo. There was some other guy in the frame where Alexis is now and I had to combine two other photos to get the whole image of the photo because there were so many random people in the way.

Here are my winners!