Wednesday October 3, 2012

Trey’s Christchurch Workshop

A Full Day of Photo Processing Adventure! Special rate for my new New Zealand neighbors!

Sign up now to reserve your spot in Christchurch, NZ on December 6, 2012. The event is right around the corner, so get it on your schedule! :) It will be an all-day event, the details are below.

I wanted to set up special pricing for everyone that lives in New Zealand, and you can see this below. It’s even better if you can dig up one of those old student IDs! :)

REGISTRATION FEES
International $499 USD
Kiwis (Hi Neighbors!) $99 USD
NZ Student $49 USD
NZIPP Member $49 USD
 

Ready? Register now!

Skill Levels For Workshop

All Skill levels are welcome! See below for more details.

A Special “Hello New Zealand!” Event

Now that I’ve officially moved my family to New Zealand, I wanted to do something special! I’ve been meaning to do this ever since I got settled, and I finally talked to the NZIPP team in Christchurch and we put together this exciting event for you. So come alone or bring a friend – we will all have a great time together!

If you have an interest in learning how to better process your photos on your computer, then this is just the thing for you! I’ll show you all my tricks… No worries, we’ll go slow. I’ll give you sample files, and we’ll start from the very beginning.

I’ll have my computer projected up on the big screen as I talk through everything from the beginning to the end. You are invited to bring along your laptop and follow along. In fact, I’d prefer it!

And, even though I’ll be going slow… if I go tooooo fast, then I’ll be recording my screen and voice and make sure you all get a copy of that after the event. Then, you can watch later at home in slow motion until you’re sure you got it figured out. :)

About Trey Ratcliff

errr…. you can visit my “About Me” page here on the site if you really wanna know more :) . At the bottom, under the registration form, I’ll put a bunch of photos that I’ve taken that I kinda like…

The Day and Location

The event will be held at the Copthorne Hotel Commodore located at 449 Memorial Avenue, Burnside in Christchurch on Thursday, December 6th, 2012, from 9:30am until 6:00 pm.

There will be chairs for you and tables where you can put your laptop (if you want to bring it). I’ll be up in the front talking about post-processing and showing you how I do everything. I’ll begin by quickly going through the whole process so you get an idea of the alpha-to-omega. And then I’ll break it down and go in slow motion. It’s like learning to dance without the awkwardness….

Must Bring

Nothing is required! Just a good attitude and child-like curiosity for learning new stuff! (No need to bring your camera)

Being Super-Prepared – Nice to Bring

  • Your Laptop
  • Photoediting Software of your choice
  • The Sample Files that I provide ahead of time (LINK TO DOWNLOAD FILES COMING BEFORE EVENT)

Being uber prepared – Tools and software that I will be using

You don’t need everything I use on my HDR Tutorial, but if you want a few, in order of importance they are:

Schedule

09:30 AM – Doors Open… Find a good seat for yourself
10:00 AM – The event starts, introduction
11:00 AM – My Post-Processing Workflow, Beginning to End
12:00 PM – Deep Dive into one of the steps
01:00 PM – Break for Lunch (provided by us)
02:00 PM – Deep Dive with multiple demos of processing many different situations
04:00 PM – Q&A regarding processing and more demos
05:00 PM – End of the workshop

Post-Event Wine & Cheese Partay

This is for NZIPP Members only. They are not as elitist as this makes it sound… but they asked me to do something extra for the NZIPP peeps. :)

 

Sample Photos

Here’s a few of the photos that have been created using some of the techniques we will discuss in class.

The Bamboo Forest While exploring Kyoto, I eventually found my way to this fanciful bamboo forest. There had been a light rain most of the morning and everything was quite lovely. The rain does strange things as it moves its way through these sorts of trees. I waited and waited, and that was nice too. In the early afternoon, the rain stopped while the sun peeked through the top. It shone down while the earlier rain misted down from the tops of the trees.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The Bay at Portofino This isn’t really Portofino, but it sure does look like it, eh? We might even make the case that it is more pretty than the real Portofino! This is a beautiful resort in Orlando, over at Universal Studios. All the colors in the sky and the buildings seemed to melt together, so I stopped for a quick photo.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The Gentle Path to the Beyond The little train that carried me into Hakone started winding through misty mountains. The trees were thick and a fog was rolling in. I had a feeling that it would stay wet, moody, and fairly perfect. It had that heaviness that made you feel like it would remain like that for a few days, and it did.Before I get on train rides, I have a wonderful but dangerous habit of loading up with pastries. Train stations seem to have nice little selections of all sorts of foreign twists on the usual subjects. And, since I consider myself an explorer, I thought it would be good to get a TON of pastries and try them all. It's very nice... sitting there... looking out the train window at a new land... rain falling... eating pastries... (and I'm only a little ashamed to say that, upon arrival, my pastry bag was empty.)- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

Chicago Thaws into Spring I was lucky enough to be in a helicopter over Chicago at sunset. A big thanks to Fiona and our pilots Bill and Jeff. They took the door off the helicopter for me, which sounds like a good idea until you are experiencing 100 MPH of chopper backwash while hanging out trying to get this kind of shot!It was a fun day. We stayed up for a few hours and circled around the city several times. I got hundreds of amazing shots. I haven't had time to process any of them except for this one... but I wanted to go ahead and get it up since I know the Twitter and Facebook crowd has been waiting on it since I mentioned it on there. Also my mom was very worried about the whole door-off-the-helicopter thing.Right in the center of the shot on the bottom is the famous Navy Pier. We timed this shot to get at the right height the second the sun dipped below the horizon to cast a rainbow of hues into the sky.(and there are pics of me hanging out of the helicopter on my Facebook page if you want to come see!) :)- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The Long Road to New Zealand This is one of countless beautiful roads that crisscross New Zealand. I'm afraid I've forgotten exactly where I was when I took this photo! I know that is very lame, but I bet people around here can help me pinpoint the area.As far as the camera settings, this is the kind of shot you can get with something called "compression," a method where you use a zoom lens and zoom in quite far. It takes images in the distance and makes them larger than life.- Trey RatcliffRead more here at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The Great Wall of China Wow I was alone here. As I walked along this ancient, original stretch of the Great Wall, I felt the ghosts haunting the old towers and little enclaves.I finally found an extremely remote part that is far enough away from civilization to stay pure. The ruins of the wall in this area has been overgrown with vegetation. When you walk along the top, you have to snake your way between huge bushes and all sorts of trees. Stairs and parts of the walkways have crumbled away in the past thousand years. The old towers are slowly fragmenting as lichens and moss cover parts of the stone that are decaying away.This has only reminded me that the main tourist part of the Great Wall is a very tiny stretch that has been re-built in recent years… so it is all fake and kind of Disney-wall. I don’t think I like that…That day I walked from tower to tower, looking at the sinuous wall as it snakes over the mountains. It’s so huge that I won’t even begin to come up with analogies… but, speaking of snakes, a family here told me to watch out for them. I kept that in mind as I hiked back in the pure black of night. I had a little flashlight to keep me company, along with my music. I didn’t see any snakes, and I didn’t fall down, so all together it was a great day and night.- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

The River Runs Through the Andes Getting to this position was not as long a hike as the others around Patagonia, but it was no cakewalk! It was one of those strange river-rock strewn areas where the rocks seemed to be the perfect size for spraining your ankles. I had the tripod extended to act like a walking stick, although it's not the most handy walking stick with a giant Nikon on one end of it!- Trey RatcliffClick here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.

Tableau Vivant Of Wild HorsesIt was about 2 A.M. and the sun was just dipping into the horizon for a short stint. These horses were frolicking about in a huge flat field a bit inland from the end of the fjord. They were all so lively and alert, jumping and posing here and there. And then they set up in a very interesting configuration, and I barely had time to put on the right lens before it all drifted apart.- Trey RatcliffRead the entire post at the Stuck in Customs blog.