Big trade show at the Birmingham NEC. First time there, mainly driven by two things; lot of chat by photographers about going so felt I should as well, and notification by my tutor at OCA that he was going to be there on the Tuesday. Nice to meet up with him. He can talk for England but he said nice things about my work, so all is forgiven. Seems like just after I decided to go for the Digital Arts course they completely revamped the first level courses for the Photography stream, which then made them much more attractive. Oh well. I still think I might get something useful out of the Dig Arts 1 course.
As for the show, lots of vendors housed in two of the halls at the NEC. Crowds not too bad, only really ran into a problem at the Adobe stand when I wanted to attend a talk on B&W conversion using their products. Couldn't get a seat and too knackered to stand for 45 minutes so left to come home. Did manage to get the back end of the previous talk while waiting though. The speaker was showing how he edited a grab shot of The Edge (U2) so that his eyes were looking at his camera rather than the one next to him. Quite nifty. Isolated the pupils and made then complete by copying them and flipping them vertically. Redid the whites to eliminate the existing ones (shadowing and colours), and then dropped the new pupils in. And after blending they looked ok. Could use the same technique on my candid of the young black guy I took at Waterloo.
Other stands visited:
Canon - nothing particularly interesting here since I understand their gear pretty well. They were plugging the 5D Mk II and showing some massive lenses on cameras that people could look through. Impossible to get close to of course. Various anoraks were twiddling with them and making appreciative noises but God knows what they were looking at. Managed to get a Canon bag to replace the free Nikon one we were all given at the front door. Equanamity restored.
Epson - again gear well understood and they were focussing on their high end large printers, which are out of my league. There was one interesting chap who was MD for a third party that made metallic sheets for printing through Epson. They would work in my 3800, but make use of the front alternative feed (need room at the back for it to feed through). MD said that they work well for wedding and general B&W. About £10 per sheet if you just buy the one it seems. Need to apply a 'lacquer' as well to protect the image. Can get that from diy store it seems. Managed to lose the guy's business card!
Superframe - displays 4"x4" photos in acrylic blocks, mounted in various combinations. Looked rather good if expensive. www.superframe.eu
Hahnemuhle - picked up three sample packs of papers. Must get round to using these some time. They were Canson Infinity (a new French company), Hahnemuhle Fine Art Collection, and Olmec, which came free with the other two. I saw an exhibition of Hahnemuhle papers, of which the Fine Art Matt group were very impressive, particularly for B&W.
Professional Photographer magazine - Bought a back issue, Feb 2009, which shows a method of producing a high key image from multiple layers in PS. Interested to see if I might subscribe in future.
B&W Photography magazine - Bought a subscription and got a free SLIK monopod, another one!
Silvershotz magazine - Bought subscription to Volume 5, which got me the four issues produced so far and the Folio. Beautifully produced magazine.
AG magazine - Four back issues purchased, the last four quarters. Again impressive quality, not as high end as Silvershotz but packed with stuff.
Printed Easy.com - On line printing house, flyers and brochures that sort of thing. Can't see me using them but you never know. Not sure why they are special?
Spicer Hallfield - Photo albums (ie. weddings). Looked good quality. www.spicerhallfield.co.uk
Dave Butcher - Old style master printer offers B&W landscape courses in the Peak District. Supports digital but really likes darkroom stuff printing on Ilford papers. www.davebutcher.co.uk
Flaghead - Succumbed to purchasing a ring flash that will work with my Canon flashes. My only failing of an otherwise quite disciplined day. Special show price! Must check on the internet! Should arrive next week. www.flaghead.co.uk
BJP - Interested in this as a regular magazine as well. Covers all aspects of pro photogs it seems. Came away with a back copy, not sure how.
Pretty good day, though a total of four hours driving for four hours on the site wasn't quite the right balance.
