Continuing education

What a month. With over 20 years in the photography business, I still find that there is so much to learn.  Especially now with digital innovations changing the industry on what sometimes feels like a daily basis.

This last month I took my annual trip to the WPPI conference in Las Vegas. Check out their site at  http://www.wppionline.com/ . A pretty intimate conference, just me and 14,000 of my closests friends.  When I first started attending these events, there were around 800 attendees.  It is great to see so many photographers from around the world that recognize the importance of continuing education to improve their photographic and business skills. The advantage to having so many attendees is that the organizers are able to support having many excellent instructors talking on a wide range of topics and a photographic specific trade show that is huge. I don't think there is any product in the market that is not represented at the trade show.

Since I've been back, I have taken much of what I learned at WPPI and added to my own course, Portraiture Framework. The course is an intermediate level program that is design to help students learn to create portraits of a consistent level and quality.  It then covers the development of a personal style based on techniques learned in the course.  The course is ten weeks longs and starts on April 13, 2010. It will be held at Focal Point in Vancouver. Log on to http://www.focalpoint.bc.ca/ to get more details and to register.  The course size is limited so don't wait too long.