Hello from Bali

Hello

Joined up to keep eye on latest trends...

Anyone have suggestion for what the most important workshops/tips would be from pro photographers, on a liveaboard trip?

We run lots of cruises where a photo pro joins to help guests... but are there specific formats we should encourage? Should the pros offer one-on-one sessions with guests or stick to group talks? Is it helpful to bring a set PPT of advice... or work off the images guests bring back after each dive?

Any suggestions great...

Thanks,
Arenui

:D

Most live aboard photo workshops are run off a laptops. Typically at the end of the day, people upload their photos and give them a once over in Photoshop. Then the networking begins where in a formal or informal group setting, guests sit around the table with their laptops and can go over strategies of post editing.

Now all this is just the post production end.

The problem with using a projector to run a workshop is most projectors are standard definition low lumens varieties, and people are using low definition, analog VGA cables, all big mistakes.

We do HD film production such as resort and live aboard promo films, and if we did a video production workshop, we'd go over white balancing, color correction and saturation adjustment of clips, clip stabilization methods, clip transition styles, clip transition pitfalls to avoid, royalty free background music sources, audio issues including timing music beats to clip transitions and why, background music styles, etc.

Now that is the post production end.

Backing up, for pre-production we can go over strategies for killer macro, use of optical filters, underwater stabilization techniques, popular underwater tripods costing hundreds of dollars less than what is available from housing manufacturers, etc.

For the actual film production we have highly portable, very compact Hollywood style cine gear like fluid head tripods, skater dollies, tripod dollies with tracks, portable compact camera jib, onboard high power LED video lights, time lapse gear, etc. It is a real eye opener when novice and serious but non-pro video filmmakers are exposed to affordable Hollywood style cine gear and see how it is used to create pro looking videos using their own video cameras attached.

We take HD film clips, save them as Quicktime files and embed them within slides using Apple's Keynote software program which is far more graphically powerful and elegant than Powerpoint. This is how we create HD multimedia presentations at scuba shows and we present these using our portable commercial HD projector, and we're the only ones do presentations with an HD commercial projector.

Next we'd discuss video sharing sites, embedding techniques, etc. Plus, we have never seen anyone else offer a video pro workshop that allowed attendees to see Hollywood style portable lightweight cine gear.


Anyway, pro workshops are a popular form of resort and live aboard experiences as they are rare and video production workshops are even more unique, so I hope this gives you some ideas.