Registration Opens for Jan. 19th San Francisco-Area Lighting Seminar
UPDATE: The San Francisco-area lighting seminar for Jan. 19, 2008 is sold out. Info and class details follow after the jump. Discussion thread link is here.
__________________________
Two things to note right off the bat:
1. I realize this is a little ways south of San Francisco proper. But this trip coincides with a visit to the nearby headquarters of a very large, unnamed internet-based company. I am scheduled tightly both before and after this seminar, which will preclude the normal Saturday-Sunday combo. So, Saturday it is.
2. Annoyingly, PayPal offers me no way to limit the number of seats in the transactional process. So I will be monitoring incoming the sales realtime and will pull the PayPal link from this page as soon as we get close to the limit. There is a chance that some of you may still apparently be able to register after it fills if you were already into the process when it filled. I will have to issue refunds for those people. It will be first-come, first-served as delineated by the time stamp on the emailed PayPal receipt. Refunds will be issued ASAP, and you will know via an additional email from me. I apologize in advance for this if it affects you. PayPal is very imperfect.
___________________________
Seminar Info and Registration Details
The class is to be held at the Santa Clara Marriott, at 2700 Mission College Blvd. in Santa Clara, CA.
Here's a map:
View Larger Map
With these seminars, my goal is threefold: To refine your approach to creating light, to fill you with as many ideas as possible in a day's time and to have fun doing it.
We'll start with a roadmap for the day, which I will do my best to keep us on. But each session will take on somewhat of a life of its own. Which is a good thing.
Our Anticipated Schedule
Morning check-in/setup: 9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. Please plan to arrive between these times, as we will still be setting up before then.
Morning session: 9:30 a.m. - ~12:30 p.m.
We'll talk about gear (I'll have a good gear selection there for a petting zoo) and take an extended, integrated look at what is essentially the Lighting 102 material in it's entirety. The focus will be on taking all of the things we talk about on the site in a day-to-day sense and integrating them to gain more of a holistic approach to lighting. Everything really is interrelated.
LUNCH BREAK
On your own, approx. one hour, and we'll be looking for your nearby suggestions in the Flickr discussion thread related to this seminar. Link to a discussion thread will be posted shortly.
Afternoon Session:
~1:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Assuming we have finished the theory stuff, we'll move into the practical/demo session. (Sometimes we go into a little overtime on the theory.) We'll get into some real-world lighting exercises photographing some of the absolute, best-looking lighting-website-reading models in the world.
(You look mahvelous...)
This is basically a lighting version of "Whose Line is it, Anyway?" with a focus on improvisational lighting based on available gear, the room, found objects, lighting mods, etc. I never know what ideas we will come up with, which is what keeps me equal parts interested in and petrified of the afternoon session. It's a good thing.
Shortly after each shoot, we will view each setup and discuss the results onscreen. This instant feedback in a group environment is an amazingly efficient way to drive home the thought and technique process. We can read and write all we want, but for photographers there is nothing better than "monkey see, money do."
(No offense.)
The goal will be to incorporate lighting theory, room environment, assignment constraints and our available gear to create a photo that seeks to produce an photograph that is an appropriate response to our situation.
Working within that framework will allow us to concentrate on better freeing ourselves in the other areas: Creativity and subject/photographer interaction.
The entire day will be a non-stop flow of ideas and techniques, punctuated by spur-of-the-moment Q-and-A. I want you to bring lots of questions, and to feel free to voice the ones that pop into your head throughout the day. In fact, if you do not ask me enough questions, I will start throwing some questions at you.
(Anyone? Anyone? ... Bueller?)
You might want to bring a notebook and pen. (I will have a URL to download the presentation, so you can relax and listen.) And bring a camera if you want to shoot the setups as a visual reference. And dress is casual, so you won't feel out of place if I show up in shorts.
As with my philosophy for the website there will be no secrets and no posturing. This stuff is not rocket science. It's light. And the first step in learning to light is to realize that anyone can get very good at it.
We will plan to wrap up at about 5:00. But if we are still going (and they don't kick us out) who knows. Normally, a fair number of people come back to the hotel bar after dinner, where we discuss lights, darks, ambers -- whatever. Always fun.
If, for some reason, you require a cancellation after booking, refunds will be granted up until January the 10th. After that time, you would be responsible for transferring your seat to another attendee.
Very Important: If, through events beyond my control, I am unable to present this seminar, refunds will be limited to the ticket price. As I already have airfare, hotel room and our venue rental paid in advance, I do not anticipate this happening. But I just wanted to cover all of the bases, in case I get run over by a bus tomorrow, or one of those Big Macs catches up to me.
Bases covered, I have to say that I am very much looking forward to this trip and especially to meeting many of you. As I do more of these seminars, I find that each session develops a vibe of its own. You put a few dozen photographers who are all eager to learn in a room, and what starts out as a simple stack of talking points turns into a rich, organic discussion that ends with everyone - including me - having a head swimming with new ideas.
Registration Details
The cost for the seminar is $159.00. (This seminar is sold out.)
To register for either seminar (with any major credit card) please click on the link at the bottom of the post, which will take you to PayPal. A PayPal account is not required to register. You will be returned to this site after successfully registering. Again, if you are in the process of registering and the seminar sells out, your fee will be refunded by the end of the day. Make sure your PayPal email address is one at which you can actually be reached.
Please leave your name and phone number (and a working email if different from the PayPal address) in the info box on the PayPal page, in case I should need to contact you. There is a discussion thread set up in the Flickr group, here.
I look forward to seeing you there.
___________________________
(This seminar is sold out.)
__________________________
Two things to note right off the bat:
1. I realize this is a little ways south of San Francisco proper. But this trip coincides with a visit to the nearby headquarters of a very large, unnamed internet-based company. I am scheduled tightly both before and after this seminar, which will preclude the normal Saturday-Sunday combo. So, Saturday it is.
2. Annoyingly, PayPal offers me no way to limit the number of seats in the transactional process. So I will be monitoring incoming the sales realtime and will pull the PayPal link from this page as soon as we get close to the limit. There is a chance that some of you may still apparently be able to register after it fills if you were already into the process when it filled. I will have to issue refunds for those people. It will be first-come, first-served as delineated by the time stamp on the emailed PayPal receipt. Refunds will be issued ASAP, and you will know via an additional email from me. I apologize in advance for this if it affects you. PayPal is very imperfect.
___________________________
Seminar Info and Registration Details
The class is to be held at the Santa Clara Marriott, at 2700 Mission College Blvd. in Santa Clara, CA.
Here's a map:
View Larger Map
With these seminars, my goal is threefold: To refine your approach to creating light, to fill you with as many ideas as possible in a day's time and to have fun doing it.
We'll start with a roadmap for the day, which I will do my best to keep us on. But each session will take on somewhat of a life of its own. Which is a good thing.
Our Anticipated Schedule
Morning check-in/setup: 9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. Please plan to arrive between these times, as we will still be setting up before then.
Morning session: 9:30 a.m. - ~12:30 p.m.
We'll talk about gear (I'll have a good gear selection there for a petting zoo) and take an extended, integrated look at what is essentially the Lighting 102 material in it's entirety. The focus will be on taking all of the things we talk about on the site in a day-to-day sense and integrating them to gain more of a holistic approach to lighting. Everything really is interrelated.
LUNCH BREAK
On your own, approx. one hour, and we'll be looking for your nearby suggestions in the Flickr discussion thread related to this seminar. Link to a discussion thread will be posted shortly.
Afternoon Session:
~1:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Assuming we have finished the theory stuff, we'll move into the practical/demo session. (Sometimes we go into a little overtime on the theory.) We'll get into some real-world lighting exercises photographing some of the absolute, best-looking lighting-website-reading models in the world.
(You look mahvelous...)
This is basically a lighting version of "Whose Line is it, Anyway?" with a focus on improvisational lighting based on available gear, the room, found objects, lighting mods, etc. I never know what ideas we will come up with, which is what keeps me equal parts interested in and petrified of the afternoon session. It's a good thing.
Shortly after each shoot, we will view each setup and discuss the results onscreen. This instant feedback in a group environment is an amazingly efficient way to drive home the thought and technique process. We can read and write all we want, but for photographers there is nothing better than "monkey see, money do."
(No offense.)
The goal will be to incorporate lighting theory, room environment, assignment constraints and our available gear to create a photo that seeks to produce an photograph that is an appropriate response to our situation.
Working within that framework will allow us to concentrate on better freeing ourselves in the other areas: Creativity and subject/photographer interaction.
The entire day will be a non-stop flow of ideas and techniques, punctuated by spur-of-the-moment Q-and-A. I want you to bring lots of questions, and to feel free to voice the ones that pop into your head throughout the day. In fact, if you do not ask me enough questions, I will start throwing some questions at you.
(Anyone? Anyone? ... Bueller?)
You might want to bring a notebook and pen. (I will have a URL to download the presentation, so you can relax and listen.) And bring a camera if you want to shoot the setups as a visual reference. And dress is casual, so you won't feel out of place if I show up in shorts.
As with my philosophy for the website there will be no secrets and no posturing. This stuff is not rocket science. It's light. And the first step in learning to light is to realize that anyone can get very good at it.
We will plan to wrap up at about 5:00. But if we are still going (and they don't kick us out) who knows. Normally, a fair number of people come back to the hotel bar after dinner, where we discuss lights, darks, ambers -- whatever. Always fun.
If, for some reason, you require a cancellation after booking, refunds will be granted up until January the 10th. After that time, you would be responsible for transferring your seat to another attendee.
Very Important: If, through events beyond my control, I am unable to present this seminar, refunds will be limited to the ticket price. As I already have airfare, hotel room and our venue rental paid in advance, I do not anticipate this happening. But I just wanted to cover all of the bases, in case I get run over by a bus tomorrow, or one of those Big Macs catches up to me.
Bases covered, I have to say that I am very much looking forward to this trip and especially to meeting many of you. As I do more of these seminars, I find that each session develops a vibe of its own. You put a few dozen photographers who are all eager to learn in a room, and what starts out as a simple stack of talking points turns into a rich, organic discussion that ends with everyone - including me - having a head swimming with new ideas.
Registration Details
To register for either seminar (with any major credit card) please click on the link at the bottom of the post, which will take you to PayPal. A PayPal account is not required to register. You will be returned to this site after successfully registering. Again, if you are in the process of registering and the seminar sells out, your fee will be refunded by the end of the day. Make sure your PayPal email address is one at which you can actually be reached.
Please leave your name and phone number (and a working email if different from the PayPal address) in the info box on the PayPal page, in case I should need to contact you. There is a discussion thread set up in the Flickr group, here.
I look forward to seeing you there.
___________________________
(This seminar is sold out.)
__________
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Posted at 11:00 AM.
37 Comments:
Woohoo - registered at 8:03 AM. Can't wait for some Strobist action in the Bay Area!
Reehaw! See you next month, sir. I listened to John Shaw's advice and woke up early. Now I'm the first commenter!!! Heck yeah! I feel like a celebrity now.
David,
I bought a ticket for myself and also one for my friend who did not have the money to buy a ticket on his own.
I did not know if one person was allowed to buy two tickets.
Anyway, thanks for everything!
Um, yeah. I jumped in as soon as the sign up link appeared, paid at 8:03 am and then the link was gone!
This is like TicketMaster, trying to get tickets to the Led Zeppelin reunion tour. David Hobby (and Northern California) rocks!
At first, I thought I might have been the first one, now I'm waiting to see if I even got it in time....
This is crazy. I hit refresh a few times at8 am but there was no link. Then I read that it has been sold out.
Darn. I got on at 8:03 and there was no link! How about a second day on Sunday?!?!
is there a waiting list?
Wow, that was crazy. Here's what happened, near as I can tell:
The signup screen went up at 8:01 a.m. (I hit "post" at exactly 8:00 a.m. and had an unclosed tag in my HTML. Fixed that and sent it back up.)
A couple of dozen people went right to the link, and got through to PayPal, immediately.
I replaced the "open for registration" copy on the page with the "sold out" copy, and placed that in draft, ready to close it down via one click at about 8:05.
The original post, for some reason, disappeared for about 7 mins. As I was monitoring incoming receipts, it took me a few mins to notice this.
That that time, I re-replaced the "sold out" copy with the registration copy and re-published the page.
It took just a couple mins to finish selling out. I figured this one might go fast, but I had no idea. (Never have had one go this fast.) At that point, I swapped to the "sold out" copy. It is kind of an art, more than a science, as there is about a 3 minute lag from the time someone clicks through to the PayPal page until they go through the process and I get a confirmation email.
If you were not right there at 8:00, and missed the original sign-up post, it probably looked as if it sold out before it went up.
But the majority of the people who got signed up did so immediately at 8:01, followed by a few that got in for the few mins that it opened back as soon as I saw that the original post had disappeared.
I always dread the real-time, frantic balancing act of sign-up mornings, and I wish I had a more perfect solution than posting real-time, monitoring emails, and trying to guess how many people are in the 3-minute pipeline at any one time.
Throw indivual browser caches into the mix, (they can sometimes show the older version when the newer version is up) and it is sometimes too random to know what is what.
It is a very imperfect system, but it is the best I have to work with as a one-person band. Sorry for the weirdness.
-DH
I think I got in (Paypal timestamp of 8:03) but I didn't see any info box to put my name and phone number (of course, I was in a rush to hit the Pay Now button). Where do we submit those?
Did you receive more registrations than you can accommodate? If so, when will you notify the unlucky registrants?
Dave,
If you were hosting the site with a host where you had more control or one of us were to volunteer some webspace you could 1) schedule when the signup page when live or just upload a page through FTP (which could also be scheduled) and 2) set it up so you only had to click a button or be ready to upload an already setup page when the signup was full.
Those pages could be setup to tell the browser to not cache them and you might even be able to get them on an HTTPS site so it would even be less likely they would be cached.
Don't know if all that sounds easier to you, but just from what you described it sounds easier to me than managing the moving around of pages on blogger.com
Just an idea to help make that easier.
-- Procrastinator in Seattle
If you got through the registration process, you are in. I was able to put the lid back on before it was oversubscribed, so no refund dance today.
That is always my biggest worry. It would be so easy if PayPal could just put a quantity limit on the item...
Waiting List????
Can you put me on the waiting list in case of a cancellation?
Amazing that the day sold out so fast.
Thanks, Jared
Paypal timestamp of 8:02:54...wow, and I though I was obsessive sitting here hitting refresh from 7:50 on.
David, remember in the video about Paul C Buff and company, where Paul says all these college MBA's keep telling him he should charge more for spare parts, for repairs, for shipping, etc. and he says no, he wants to sell a great product and take care of his customers at cost...
Some Business smart guy is going to suggest that if you sold out in 10 seconds at $159 then you shoud charge $299 for the next seminar. Don't give in!
Thanks for providing a great product at a fair price.
See you on the 19th (I hope!)
David, I just thought of something that might make quantity control easier. You could set the registration up on ebay as a buy it now item, and set whatever quantity you want to. There might be an additional cost for ebay fees, I'm not sure how much that would add up to. There's only a few extra clicks required on the purchaser's end, you can still go through paypal, and you would be spared the mad webpage shuffle.
Paypal and Ebay are the same kettle of fish. You could sell tickets on Ebay as "Buy now" and state an exact quantity as available. Payment goes as well through Paypal. Just publish the sale at 08:00 or whenever you like.
damn I was looking forward to this but it was gone way too fast. I think you need to do more than one in this area :)
@Nick-
re Paul Buff, I have a lot of admiration for him about his ignoring the advice of many MBA's. And I also am aware of the supply/demand issues with the seminars, but do not feel comfy jacking the price up to compensate.
I am going to go after it from a different direction, including an entire lighting seminar in the DVD's, which currently are being transcripted and time coded (for subtitles).
Problem with eBay is you do not know when something will actually pop up as being available. I am looking at a third-party fullfillment provider and hopefully can fine-tune this soon.
@Anthony-
I will almost certainly be getting back to SF.
Heh.. I'm in! Just to clarify, I don't need to bring any lighting gear, but I can bring my camera?
OH.man! This was sold out before I even saw it!!!! Why only one day?? Damn!
David when is your DVD coming out?????
Debbi
Well, I was out shooting the winter solstice sunrise, but even then I probably wouldn't have made the cut! If there is a waiting list, I'd love to be on it! I've learned so much from this blog and the Flickr group...
- Andy
chance you have room for a 2nd date?
would be great.....
or on a cancel waiting list also? Former is best...
Chris
Dan:
Reading what was happening behind the scenes freaks me out! I think I got through at 8:08 am. I'm happy I didn't read the post to the end!
I had my credit card and laptop next to me on the bed from last night and two alarms set to wake me up before the deadline!
I can't believe this sold out on the first day. Can't a larger room or second day be added? I was really looking forward to attending.
What about so Cal.. anything comin our way ?????
Great site BTW !!!!
Where do I sign up? I slept in! Am I too late? My dog ate my homework!
Aw man, I wish there were more spots! I think there's more than enough demand for another seminar. Do it!
All this discussion about the sold out event lets everyone forget to ask the important question: What are you doing at Googles? Finding a new job?
any word on a waiting list or second date? i could probably set something up in sacramento, if sf were unavailable.
Yes, second date please, preferably in Southern Cal.
How about a Hawaii seminar?
I hear the weather is pretty warm this time of year..and all the time!
David,
I forgot the part about you sandwiching a SF seminar between two other immovable commitments, so could you please just cancel them and have another date closer to where I live? Anywhere in California would be cool.
ATTENTION: THIS IS A SARCASTIC COMMENT. FOLKS, READ THE WHOLE POST, NOT JUST THE COMMENTS.
Aack! So when will the Orlando Seminar registration be open? Guess I'll need to limber up the ol' fingers for that!
Also, can I register more than one person at a time? There are two and potentially three of us that want to attend. Will each of us be required to register separately? Or can I do the three with one registration?
Thanks!
Well, I'm pretty sad. I've been waiting for a California seminar for some time now and the registration opens and closes while I'm on my vacation to the future in-law's house. Please come back soon as I will hopefully be first in line. Or, if anyone would like to give up their seat ...
Kidding, sort of.
HELLO ALL,
Would anyone like to share a room to cut down on costs and put the money to things that matter, like more SB-800s?
I have a paid spot for the San francisco seminar to sell.
Looking forward to learning from you today! In case you need some drooling material, there's a new PocketWizard coming out...
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9206-9216
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