One long day...

Just when you think you couldn't cram any more information into your head... you get hit with one more day of Photoshop World. Really... amazing. This is certainly a time to take advantage of any information that you can manage to retain... and at least I feel like I'm making smart decisions about what types of classes I'm taking, as well as when to call it quits. Yesterday, the day my blog didn't really go as planned, I left about two classes worth early. I was DONE. I had just spied the Corel booth at the Tech Expo, around 4:00 in the afternoon, and I couldn't even stop to check out the new Painter software, which was something I really wanted to see. I saw it, confirmed they'd be there today, and left... I couldn't take even one more creative possibility at that moment.

Yesterday I had my portfolio reviewed by Joe McNally. I had no idea who he was... just that they'd paired me with him because of the type of pictures I take. Turns out he's quite the renowned photographer. He had decent things to say about my portfolio. I actually had shown him our family photo book alongside my "formal" portfolio. He had positive things to say about my shooting, but what I took away was him saying, if you want to be taken seriously as a photographer, you need serious equipment. 'Da here that, honey!??  While he didn't say anything negative, per se, I didn't really leave the session ready to take more pictures. This could have contributed to feeling a bit overwhelmed yesterday!

Today, however, I had a much more positive day (not that yesterday was negative... I had great classes, but I was simply exhausted and overwhelmed by the end of the day). I slept in past the first round of classes (smart move, I didn't leave the convention center until 9:30 at night), and begun with two sessions on introductory Lightroom. Okay... I'll likely convert from Bridge. Then I took a class from a very down to earth instructor, and was blown away. He taught a class on channels and Lab color mode. Really, very cool stuff. I'm going to play around with it a bit later. 

The very exciting part for me, today, actually, I should say gratifying... was after watching Joe McNally for an hour in the Nikon Theater (yeah, he's their main photographer for the D3), I hung around and asked a few questions of one of the Nikon reps about his opinion on how best to move forward in upgrading my equipment. Yes, it would be nice, I quipped to him, to buy a D3, but we'd just purchased a travel trailer and couldn't afford it this year. The conversation inevitably led to kids/travel, etc. As a proud mama, I whipped out our 2007 iBook family photo album, and he first asked about the book itself, and thought it was very cool (I agree)... then he started looking through all of the pictures (the vast majority taken with my D80) and was very impressed with the shots. "Lifestyle" pictures he called them. I gave him my business card and he said he'd pass it along to the person in charge of that kind of thing (marketing, I'd imagine...), and not to be surprised if I got a call from Nikon in the future... Okay, while I have to admit I'm on cloud nine... I'm honestly not going to count on it. I'm just so gratified that he thought so highly of my pictures. Hee hee! 

Okay, I just realized the time. I'm beat, and have an early class in the morning.