Light Pro Expo 2009

[micajoy]

I just got back from this year's Light Pro Expo in Bonita Springs, Fl and thought I would offer my two cents for anyone who might be attending next year.

Highlights of the Week:

- The format is VERY hands on. Every day there is a shooting lab open with 10 different lighting setups and backgrounds as well as the ability to shoot outside. There are coaches staffing the lab to help you from 8:30am-10:00pm. I found this to be the most valuable experience of the week. I shot indoors and outdoors with coaches helping me one-on-one address specific questions that I had. If I go back, I'll do more of this and less of the class time. Sometimes it just helps to have a different set of eyes to give you you insights on lighting, composition, technique etc that you would not have thought of on your own. This definitely led me in a couple of new directions I plan to explore more.

- TriCoast's Wireless Lighting Class - To me, this was by far the most meaty and educational class I attended. The entire 4 hours was packed non-stop with awesome information and pictorial demonstrations. Alot of the other speakers padded their time with sales, marketing, business and various other info. All good topics to be sure, but I came to learn about lighting. It is called Light Pro Expo, after all. TriCoast did not disappoint - they delivered a fantastic program and I can't wait to try out their techniques some more this week.

- Models were available everyday from 8:30am-10:00pm. They had mostly kids and early 20's with a few babies and even a senior citizen couple thrown in. If you are like me, all your friends are tired of being photographed when you are learning new techniques so it was great to have this resource.

- The speakers were very accessible. While I was shooting in the lab, Dave Junion came over to give me a few tips. I saw Travis Gugelman and Jen Hillenga everywhere and they were always willing to give out advice. From what I could tell, the rest of the speakers were only there for a day or two, but during that time they were all very approachable. I don't know where else you can get such easy access to so many great photographers. It was really a great learning environment, no matter what your incoming skill level.

Other Highlights:

- Hanson Fong is always a great speaker. I've seen his program before so I didn't stay for the whole thing but he is packed with info as well.

- Group shoots (including sunrise, sunset and beach). Most days the weather didn't cooperate so I can't comment much on these. Personally, I tend to dislike group shoots, but if you like them there are at least 2 per day.
They are led by either the coaches or the speakers.


Things I would Improve:

- Each day is so jam-packed with programs you have to make a choice between shooting with the models or attending the sessions. It would have been nice to have a bit more time in the schedule so that you can do both.

- Unfortunately, no info was provided on what each speaker would be presenting so that you could determine ahead of time if you wanted to attend. This would have helped me make better decisions. I only wanted to focus on lighting, but several folks had presentations heavy on business/marketing/sales.


I'm glad I went and I would recommend this conference for a beginner/intermediate skilled photographer. There are tons of folks to learn from and this is one of the few places (only?) that you can do that one-on-one.