So it’s the New Year and by now you’ve packed up your Christmas loot, put away your plastic Christmas tree and trooped back to work. We’re back at work after some time off this December, but I’m ashamed to report that our Christmas tree is still standing in our living room (we’re getting to that today, I swear!) New this year for us is the big photography seminar this coming March 15-17, 2013. We’ve convinced humanitarian photographer and globetrotting author David duChemin that, yes, it is safe to leave his warm house in Vancouver to visit the mountains in springtime in Alberta…. (cue evil laughter: “mwah ha ha ha!”) So David will be joining us at Persistent Vision: The Pursuit of Story and Inspiration this March held in the lovely little hamlet of Bragg Creek, at the base of the Canadian Rockies.

At the full day seminar on Saturday, March 16, participants will be regaled with David’s exploits and adventures from his travels around the world, and both David and Darwin and I will talk about what it takes to make a living at photography in today’s age. As well, Darwin and I will be teaching how you can ‘see’ the art in the everyday details around you so that, when you do head out on that once-in-a-lifetime trip, you’ll return with unique and personal imagery.

Beauty in the everyday – the story of Darwin taming his eyebrows! – ©Darwin Wiggett

Which brings me to the point of this post. While we are discussing creating art with your camera at the Saturday seminar, we’re not going to be covering how to capture, edit and process your images to keep that storytelling aspect. Make no mistake: strong photographs are created when we ‘see’ the story, capture the story by selecting the correct camera settings and gear and then preserve or enhance that story in the digital darkroom.

Well, we have two special talks associated with Persistent Vision we want you to know about. The first one takes place in Calgary on January 19 from 1 to 4 PM and is called The Art of Storytelling (open to all) and covers techniques we use in the field to capture evocative stories. There will be great prizes at the event including a Sigma Lens and a pass to the Persistent Vision seminar!

The second event to be held here in Cochrane on January 21 is a special oopoomoo Talk, just for those people who have registered for the Persistent Vision seminar. We spill the beans on how we process our images to preserve the heart of a story in your images. And the price is only $5! Wow! As many of you know, we don’t really do talks on how to process your images or how to use Lightroom, Photoshop, Aperture etc. (there are lots of great tutorials out there already) but we can share how your processing choices affect the look, feel and story of your final image. This talk is NOT another ‘how to use’ Lightroom or Photoshop talk; we’re going to show you how we use our software and plug-ins to enhance mood and tell stronger stories. Learn more about this talk at Enhancing Story and Mood in the Digital Darkroom

Here’s a couple of examples of what I mean.

Raw and final: How much detail is too much? Knowing when to quit – ©Samantha Chrysanthou

Which to keep and which to delete for best story? The art of ruthless editing.

Interested? You can read more about the talk here. Remember, this talk is only open to participants who have registered for the Persistent Vision seminar by January 21, the date of this talk (so if you’re sitting on the fence, maybe this will tip you over to our side!) Now, on to that Christmas tree….

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