Workshop Sponsor: Luma Labs

I'm pleased to announce another great sponsor for the Close to Home workshop in Port Townsend, WA. Luma Labs, the Portland, Oregon-based makers of the Loop and LoopIt camera straps, wants to make sure that your camera is always at the ready to capture the photographs you find all around you. That's why they've taken the popular sling strap for cameras and improved upon it.

Luma Labs Loop and LoopIt camera straps work simply and simply work. They've focused on a minimalist design with quality materials and construction to make sure your camera strap is a natural extension of your shooting style. Your camera hangs comfortably at your side but can be raised to your eye quickly and smoothly, giving you confidence that your camera is ready when you need it.

I've been a Luma Loop customer since they were first available in November 2009 and I love the simplicity of its design and its ease of use. I've carried a variety of cameras with it, from a bulky Nikon D3s with a 70-200 f/2.8 zoom lens to the svelte Leica M9, and it's always been comfortable and reliable. It's also very durable and long-lasting; I still use the same strap I bought in 2009.

Thanks to Luma Labs, we'll be giving away two Loop straps at the Close to Home workshop to a couple of attendees, along with the other great prizes from Craft & Vision, ThinkTANK Photo and OnOne Software. But you've gotta be there to win, so be sure to get signed up soon! You can save 10% off the regular $299 workshop fee if you sign up by September 2nd—less than a week away.

We'd love to see you there!

Join me in Chicago

As you might have noticed, I’m partnering with Ray Ketcham to hold a Close to Home workshop in Port Townsend, Washington in late September/early October. It’s shaping up to be a really great experience, with presentations, exercises, photo assignments and more. Plus we’ve gotten some really great sponsors—Craft & Vision, ThinkTANK Photo, and OnOne Software—who have generously donated some pretty cool prizes. I’ll also be hanging around for the Ray Ketcham-led Port Townsend version of the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk on Sunday, October 2. It’s all gonna be a great time and I hope you’ll join us if you can.

But that’s not your only chance to spend a little time with me and find out a little more about the methods I teach from the book, Close to Home: Finding Great Photographs in Your Own Back Yard. On September 24, I’ll be a guest speaker at Steve Huff’s photography workshop in Chicago. It's a short presentation—about a half an hour—but I’ll also be hanging around for most of the shooting part of the workshop, lending Steve and the workshop participants a hand where I can. Chicago is a great city to spend time in, let alone getting to spend time photographing it. We’ll be exploring places like Millenium Park, Navy Pier and more, so there’ll be many opportunities to find some great photographs. It’s certainly one of my favorite cities to visit and photograph.

Details and sign up information for the workshop can be found on Steve’s site, along with workshop agenda. If you sign up before September 1st, you’ll get $50 off of the regular workshop price of $350.

Hope to see you there!

Workshop Sponsor: OnOne Software

I'm pleased to announce yet another great sponsor of the Close to Home photography workshop in Port Townsend, Washington. The great folks at OnOne Software, makers of award-winning plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom & Apple Aperture, have joined us to help you take your photographic thinking in new directions.

Their Perfect Photo Suite contains seven terrific tools to help you zip through post processing and get you back out shooting in no time. It contains the most recent versions of Perfect Resize (powered by Genuine Fractals) for resizing, Mask Pro for removing unwanted backgrounds, PhotoTune for color correction, FocalPoint for selective focus and PhotoTools and PhotoFrame for amazing photographic effects. Plus, you get their newest product—Perfect Layers for Lightroom and Aperture. The Perfect Photo Suite is a great value, and it's currently on sale during OnOne Software's Summer Sale!

But hey, for a couple of workshop participants, we've got an even better price—free! Yep, OnOne Software has kindly donated not one, but two copies of the Perfect Photo Suite (a $499.95 value) for two randomly selected participants in the Close to Home workshop.

My sincere thanks to OnOne Software for joining ThinkTANK Photo and Craft & Vision as workshop sponsors. It really is gratifying to have great people like this behind us.

Want to join us in Port Townsend? Details and sign up are here.