I rarely put up ads on the blog. I don't want to interrupt the flow of articles that a lot of my audience has come to enjoy. But, in fact, we worked really hard up in Denver, Colorado to produce some online programming that is fun and educational. If you are the kind of person who enjoys taking workshops or spending time on various learning channels fleshing out your technique and your knowledge of photography you might really enjoy a lot of what is on offer at Craftsy.
Many of you comment on my portraits; the lighting and the rapport with subjects. In the class above I give a detailed presentation of how I like to light. Not the routine formulas endemic to the web but exactly the way I like to light and interact with my subjects. I have a beautiful model and I play with my favorite lighting and modifying tools in the course. The Course lasts about two and a half hours, in sections. With the link above you can get the course (forever online) for about $25. Or five Venti Latte Coffees at Starbucks. You can go to the link and sample the course for free! If you pay the $25 and don't like the course you can get your money back.
In addition to the Studio course above I am also including, in this blog, a discount link to a course that is a bit more basic and covers a lot of beginner topics as well as some Lightroom-Lite at the end. It's a fun course because it teaches but it's narrative in nature and each section is a fun adventure. I love the stuff we shot with a family at a horse ranch up in the mountains. Go and see the intro. You might like it. It's certainly something fun to watch if you are socked in by weather and can't get out to photograph on your own!
In addition to my two classes above I've actually gone through the catalog of classes offered by Craftsy.com and picked out a number of my favorites in the photography section. I like them and found them valuable so I thought you might too. Here they are below, in no particular order:
One of the original Craftsy Photo Classes and
still one of the best!
I met Lance a couple of weeks ago in Denver
and found him to be really fun and knowledgeable
this class reflects what he teaches in hands-on
workshops in Ireland and Iceland, as well as
cool places around the U.S.
How to make what we shoot into a cohesive
train of visual thought.
So, Lesa is the author of "PhotoShop, the Missing Manual" as well as a dozen other bestselling books on Photoshop, Lightroom and all things Post Processing. She is a superstar in that area and this is one of her first Craftsy.com workshops. It was right up my alley. I have been working in Photoshop for twenty years and I still learned about a dozen really great techniques to make the portraits I've shot look incredibly better. This one is a must for anyone interested in making images of humans look amazing.
Of all the people I met in Denver her course was almost perfectly aligned with what I needed to learn.
I am seriously signing off to go watch "Perfecting PhotoShop Portraits" one more time. I'm retouching 21 portraits of architects tomorrow and I want to get comfortable with some new techniques.
Suspend disbelief and click on a few of these links. It doesn't cost a cent to go and look.
That's my commercial message for the week --- now back to our original programming.
4 comments:
Thanks for these links, Kirk; bookmarked for leisure-time viewing.
Pursuant to your campaign to destroy big cameras (ha-ha), I submit for your amusement the following pics of a workshop on healthy vegetarian cooking as evidence. The pics in the main gallery were shot with a Nikon V1 and 6.7-13mm (18-35mm eq.) and 18.5mm (52mm eq.) lenses. The sub-folder pics (link under big photo in main gallery) were taken with a Nokia 808 Pureview vintage 2011 (?) PHONE CAMERA. Of course I'm cheating - the phone has a 41 mpx sensor from which these 5-mpx stills were Pureview-software extracted (and yes, I ran them through Lightroom because the 28mm eq. camera lens has horrible flare). The link: http://lwspix.pixieset.com/healthyvegetariancooking2016-02-06/
Hi. My name is Ed Zimmeth and I am an amateur who LOVES taking pictures! I am adding this comment to highly recommend Mr. Tuck’s Studio Portrait Lighting Class at Craftsy.
There are many videos, tutorials, etc. on the Internet with good tips, lots with detailed and even complex setups but I have not found any that really put it all together like Mr. Tuck’s course. And it is done without a sales pitch or lecture on the only/best way to do it or risk being a big looser, as sometimes happens with online tutorials. Brands are mentioned but only in the context of how Mr. Tuck uses the equipment. But he adds other ways to get the desired effect without using the specific brands or even specific equipment. (Watch for the three light setup using a single light, a bounce and a mirror.)
A couple takeaways from my experience; there is a lot of information and I recommend watch the whole series, let it sink in for a couple days, then go back and watch what may still be a bit fogy -- Craftsy makes it easy to do!
Also, after watching the course and practicing some of the techniques a little, I felt a tremendously confidence boost and I’ll bet you will, too!
I have no affiliation with Craftsy and have never met Mr. Tuck. I am an IT guy by trade but have to follow my love of photography. I am posting this comment because the course was very useful for me, well worth the $35 that I believe was the price at the time. You can email me at erz0012(at)gmail(dot)com if you have any questions about my experience.
All the best,
Ed Zimmeth
Houston, TX
Hi Kirk,
I have already watched several Craftsy courses (basically your courses and Neil Van Niekerk's) and I have enjoyed them and found them very useful.
By the way, I have noticed that in your posts you have mentioned Neil Van Niekerk several times, but his name ends up written as Neil Van NiekIrk instead of NiekErk.I don't know if you know him personally but I thought it could be interesting to mention it just in case he gets upset :)
Best regards,
Carlos
Thanks for the recommendations Kirk, I've added them to my Craftsy wish list - now I just need to finds a few hrs more in a day.
Like Ed Zimmeth and Carlos above, I can highly commend Kirk's course, but like all online courses you definitely need to put it into practice to get the most out of them. There is only so much that will sink in while watching these online.
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