Photoshop World Las Vegas 2011

Last month I boarded a plane and headed west to attend the Photoshop World conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. I wish I had lots of witty information and juicy tidbits to share, but I don’t. Instead I’d prefer to share a few things that stuck with me from the experience.

I have a more technically insightful guest post coming soon at Love That Shot, so keep an eye over there for some helpful tips I picked up at PSW.

Hotel/Las Vegas thoughts:

  • There are slot machines in the airport terminal and next to baggage claim. Am I the only one who things that is weird…and sad?
  • At almost 40 I took my very first solo taxi ride; I’m finally an adult. LOL
  • Hotel was gorgeous and affordable!
  • Food was outrageously expensive and not all that great.
  • Sunrises were so beautiful, breathtaking!
  • Temperature outside was hot, but dry and this Southern girl was quite glad not to be drinking the air like she does at home.
  • It was a long walk inside the hotel, from my room to the conference center, where the workshops were held. Like a 10 minute walk, that is a long time, considering I never left the hotel. 😉
  • Too much smoking everywhere. You’ll see a smoking sign in the slideshow, saying that they could smoke past that point but they were smoking before that, trust me.

Conference thoughts:

  • There were a LOT of attendees of this conference!! 3000 I think it was….this introvert was a bit overwhelmed.
  • Workshop workbook was crazy big, too big to carry around, but PACKED full of great info! Almost worth going just for that.
  • Workshops offered were pretty good; only really unhappy with one. Several had me so excited I could hardly sit still.
  • The Expo was a bit of a let-down. Not sure what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it.
  • Tamron people were fantastic, answered lots of questions, let me demo the lens on my own camera, etc. Left there and bought the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8.
  • Think Tank rep was very snotty to me; I left offended and that is hard to do, honestly. Said “real” female professional photographers only carry black bags, when I tried to disagree, he just continued to degrade me/us. I just had to walk away.
  • Photo shoots in Expo area were neat, but models were dressed so bizarrely I didn’t bother trying to get shots of them for my portfolio. Lighting was fantastic though.

Highlights:

Bottom line….was it worth it? Yes.

Will I go again?

Not to the Las Vegas one, but I do plan to attend the Washington, DC one in March, 2012.

I honestly didn’t take very many pictures with my D700, rather more with my handy iPhone 4, so my slideshow might be anti-climatic for you. I did share some night time pics and a video of us driving down the strip at my personal blog.

There are 36 images in the slideshow, so if it slows down after like 10, give it a minute to get going again.

About Amanda

I am passionate about helping others learn how to use their DSLR cameras and editing programs. More information about me can be found at my About page, or by visiting my personal blog.

Comments

  1. Theresa Stothers says:

    I think the picture of the guy wrinkling his nose in the airport line is hilarious!

  2. “‘real’ female professional photographers only carry black bags” – what an idiot and obviously not a very good salesperson….

  3. I’ve never been to Vegas but I think I would find that overwhelming to go on my own, especially for a conference. I don’t like the idea that so much smoking is going on but I’m sure that’s a tactical tip to let people smoke and gamble at the same time. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for your blog post over at Love That Shot! Definitely do a post with some shots from your new lens! 🙂

  4. Sounds like an exciting and worthwhile trip for the most part:). Too bad I am viewing this on my iPad and the slideshow is using FLASH!

  5. Your pictures are great Amanda! I’ve never been to Vegas, but Heather went recently and loved it!!

  6. Your review and pictures were fun to see Amanda! I am happy/lucky to have met you here in Vegas since you probably won’t be back. It was a highlight for me to meet you, the girls from I heart faces, and a few new local Vegas girls. Smoking and expensive food is in casinos on the strip only and outside of this there is a whole big city out there of regular people like yourself. NOTE to anyone coming to Vegas… get in touch with a local that is going to be there before coming out! Seriously I hope our paths cross again Amanda!

Trackbacks

  1. […] have their One Bag and really enjoy using it as a lens-carry bag and a laptop bag. When I went to Photoshop World it was my laptop and camera bag. A review for the One Bag will come later, today we are focusing on […]

Leave a Reply to Theresa Stothers Cancel reply

*