Tony Seeley Photography

Well today was an interesting day, I went to the Apple Store to have them look at my week old MacBook Pro and was ready to get angry with them when they said “you have a hardware issue – lets get you a new computer”.  I have to say I was very impressed.  It appeared that one of the on-board heat sensors was faulty and that’s what was causing the issue.  In hindsight, I guess it could have been because I left the computer in the trunk of the car while at Hoover Dam (and it was over 100 degrees outside – probably a lot more in the trunk) – but then Chris’ computer was in the same place and his was fine.  Anyway, I got a nice new one and it’s fully loaded up and full of images.

So I was able to select another image from the Vegas trip.  This time I’m posting another model image, again this was captured at the Westcott display at the show’s expo.  I’m calling this one Candy Girl as her hair is full of candy.  She has a cheeky grin on her face (very Pam from True Blood I thought) and gave me a look at just the right time.  I liked the set too with the deep red chandelier, having that out of focus in the background gave a nice balance to the image (although it does tend to pull you away from the model).

I was fighting for space when I captured this (again) it was total chaos at the set with loads of photographers elbowing each other trying to get in the right position.  What was funny was that in the next bay (they had two) was a male model and nobody was trying to photograph him.

I do have another model picture to post but it wasn’t that great but I’ll hang on to that in case I have an emergency.  This one I felt was good.

Today, back home, Carter and Master Chief decided to do some homework and review the notes and course notes they got a Photoshop World.

A couple of day’s ago I posted a picture that I captured in the Westcott display at the Photoshop expo.  They have a number of stages set up with all their lights and professional models.  The image I posted the other day was called Sad Girl as the model was clearly uncomfortable.

Today’s image is totally different.  This girl was made and dressed up in a horror kind-a outfit.  She looked really good and was clearly used to lots of middle aged men pointing cameras at her.  She was very confident and pulling all sorts of faces that went along with her look.

These bays were manic, there were so many people fighting to get close to take a picture and we had to be pretty patient to get our shot.  What made matters worse was that we had expensive gear with really nice portrait lenses that required we stood back from the model, but every time we stepped back some idiot would go in front with their crappy cheap camera and lens and get in the way.

Anyway we bided out time, I called out to her and asked her to look my way and she gave me a great stare.  I got a few really good frames and chose one of them to post tonight.

Unfortunately the conference is now over and tomorrow we are driving over to Hoover Dam to get some shots there.  Then it’s home to review all the images I captured and pick which ones I post here.

Today Carter decided to checkout the artwork in the Mandalay Bay hotel.  They have some very interesting pieces.

So today was our first full day at Photoshop World.  We attended the Key Note opening presentation and then went to some classes with Joe McNally (an amazing photographer).

After that we attended the Expo where a number of resellers were showing their products.  The expo was really good, there was loads of amazing photography stuff there – Lisa’s worst nightmare!  But today I didn’t buy a thing, I’m really proud of myself.

Anyway, one of the resellers (Westcott) sells a lot of lighting equipment and they had a couple of “bays” set up with lights.  Each bay had a model posing for passers by.  If you had a camera (and we did) you could just snap away and test out how good the lights were.

What made this funny (and sad) is one of the girls was dressed in 1940’s lingerie and was clearly not that comfortable with all the photographers there.  Sure she was smiling at each person with a camera, but the eyes never lie.  Every now and then her smile would drop and you could see she really wasn’t enjoying it.

I guess being a model you are used to having your picture taken, but when there are so many people fighting to get in front of you it’s got to be pretty scary.  I really felt for her.  But then I thought sod it and took her picture too.

Today Carter and Master Chief visited the casino and I found them tonight splitting their winnings.