Many of you know that I am in Las Vegas this week attending the Photoshop World conference. This is 3-day blast of photography, photoshop, and well, all that Vegas has to offer. I’m not a particularly “Vegas” kind of guy but the conference is great.

I just realized that I haven’t left the Mandalay Bay Resort since I arrived yesterday afternoon. Somehow I haven’t been outside in almost 30 hours.

This morning, after running in the gym, I attended two back to back sessions with Joe McNally about using Speedlights (external flashes) in creative ways to light subjects. It was a tremendous pair of sessions as lighting has been my biggest stumbling block when it comes to capturing portraits of the staff for our business cards and other promotional pieces. I learned a ton and look forward to picking up a couple of simple light modifiers at Alaska Camera to put some new techniques to the test.

In the afternoon the expo floor was open and a million vendors were shilling their wares. I even stopped by the Xerox booth who had the cutest little machines on display. My favorite find was this GIANT Wacom tablet pictured to the right. It was ridiculous. Shawna wants me to bring one back. It was all pretty overwhelming so I’m sure I’ll go back tomorrow to take it all in again and check out some of the demos that are scheduled.

This evening I was able to listen to Jeremy Cowart, a photographer/artist, speak about having vision and being original. The gist of his message was that too many photographers look at what everyone else is doing and try to emulate it. Which makes them look like everyone else, which makes them boring. Photographers (and marketers, and printers…) need to set themselves apart by being their unique selves. It was a great reminder to spend less time trying to be safe and boring.

By the way, Cowart is a sort of personal hero because of his heart for people. I had a chance to speak with him for a couple of minutes after the talk and found him, even after having flown all night from Haiti to get to the conference, kind and gracious. Just as I imagined.

Tomorrow is another big day. I plan on going to more sessions, checking out the expo floor again, and maybe even going outside. Ruth’s Chris is just up the strip…