Went to Dubai for a week earlier this month. I was there for Gulf Photo Plus. It was a great week full of good workshops. I got a chance to work on some HDR stuff with David Nightingale. I really like his less over the top philosophy of HDR work. Also did a portrait retouching workshop with him. It was nice to get a few techniques for retouching. I also got to see how someone handles a mixture of experience in one class. There were some people who had never used Photoshop and others who were very good with it. I worry about teaching groups that are that mixed.

The last part of the week was spent with Zack Arias for an On Location workshop. Big fan of this guys work. He works a lot with musicians out of his Atlanta studio. That would be a good time. He is an example of what I like about photography, someone who knows his stuff technically so that he can pull off his creative vision. It is hard to find tech and creative, but I think Zack is great.

I picked up a couple of DVD workshops while I was at the conference so that I could continue my education beyond the week. Zack Arias’ One Light DVD is a great resource. I have already learned a lot from it. Not really impressed with the video quality, but the information is good.

You can see some of the photos that I took over the week on my photography site (photography.brianparis.com)