Friday, May 18, 2012

Learning Online

The internet provides a wealth of information, material, and opportunity to learn almost anything. I have benefitted immensely from the opportunities provided by some software manufacturers who regularly broadcast webinars to enlighten us about their products. Nik Software presents daily webinars which delve into the nuts and bolts of each of their Photoshop/Lightroom plugins, as does On One software and other software developers.  Why do this? To sell software. 

There's also quite a few marketers who do online classes for a fee. Kelby Training and Peachpit Press to name just two. They may offer a free class or a few minutes from each of several classes to whet your whistle and entice you to join up or buy DVDs of the classes. There is one that I spent some time with today that prompted me to write this  blog post. Creative Live is running a series of all day classes today (Friday), Saturday, and Sunday about on-camera flash photography that are FREE. Of course, they want you to buy the DVDs of the class and other classes that they have offered. It's a lot of information to absorb just by listening to the webcast, so I can see how someone would want to purchase the product. During one of the breaks in the class I glanced at the Creative Live schedule of classes and I have to say, it's quite impressive. If it's a subject in which you are seriously interested, there's a lot to be learned, and it's probably worth the investment to purchase the DVDs. If it's a class you're just curious about, investing some time to learn something new is quite painless. 

On another note, for four days this week the DUMBO area of Brooklyn has been turned into a street photographer's dream. The New York Photo Festival hosts quite a few seminars and lectures about the state of contemporary photography, and there are quite a few shows of photographers' work that are free to the public. The area of Brooklyn is extremely photogenic, and the streets will be filled with people. 

Here's my shot for today, I think her name's Josephine the Plumber.















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