Lightroom Tips

David Ziser's Digital Wake-up Call Seminar

This past Wednesday I attended David Ziser’s Digital Wakeup Call seminar. I mentioned it here and a few of you asked for my thoughts on the evening since this seminar will be traveling all around the country. So here goes:

The evening starts at 5pm and there’s various vendors in an expo-like area (for 1 hour). The products are all geared toward wedding photographers so it’s worth checking out, but getting to talk to other attendees in the business is probably the best part of that hour.

OK, on to the seminar itself. Honestly folks, if you’re a wedding photographer or want to break into this business I can’t imagine a better way to spend $60. I know you expect me to say that because David’s a friend but seriously, if I didn’t like the evening I’d just find a way to tactfully say it without being mean. I wouldn’t rave about it like I’m about to.

Anyway, my favorite part of the evening is that David goes at light speed. He easily packs 8 hours of material into that 4 hours. He doesn’t treat you like you’re fragile and don’t know anything. He does cover each topic well (like backlighting, posing, bouncing flash, to name a few), but he covers it fast and with great examples that continually got “oooooos and ahhhhs” from the crowd. Don’t let it scare you though. I honestly think you’ll welcome the pace because you learn a lot more and he’s so good at explaining things. Plus you get notes so you don’t have to scribble everything down. The notes not only cover his slides but also exactly which products he’s using in case you want to use them too.

The earlier part of the evening was spend on shooting the wedding, flash, and other topics around the event itself. Later in the evening he even went on to talk about some photo post-processing with Lightroom (and David knows Lightroom extremely well!). All-in-all I felt it was very similar to the way it was described on his website which is always important to me when I attend a seminar.

I think the best part of the evening is that David shares every bit of his secrets to make it in the wedding business. He never shows you a photo or a finished product and says “Well that’s one of my little secrets” (I always hate when presenters do that). He holds nothing back. He’s engaging, funny, and extremely professional.

A comment:The only thing I’d really have to comment on is that I wished there was a break around 7 to 7:30 ish. The break didn’t come until after 8 and I know it’s because he just wants to make sure he covers all the material. But I did have to get up and stretch for a minute. Even if you miss something though, you’ve got the notes to catch you up.

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