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Rangefinder
Magazine WPPI Wrap-up by Emily Burnett With editorial contributions by John Rettie, CharMaine Beleele, and Bob Rose; and photographs by Alan Karlin, CharMaine Beleele, Rick Ferro, Ron Eggers and Anthony Cava. If you happened to be in Las Vegas in late February or if you’ve been paying attention to the photo industry recently, you probably already realize this year’s WPPI Convention and Trade Show, February 21–26 at BALLY’s Las Vegas, was the biggest ever. Trade Show The trade show featured 247 exhibitors in 440 booths—in a floor space increased 14,000 square feet, or about 25 percent, from last year’s space. There were booths for labs and lighting, publishers and printers, albums and accessories—basically any product a professional photographer could want, need or imagine was available. The show attracted new exhibitors this year, such as Apple, who did not display at the PMA show the previous week, and Adobe. All of the major players in photography had space on the trade show floor. Little did WPPI attendees realize, but they were among the first photographers to get their hands on the all-new Canon EOS-1d Mark II and Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n cameras. The cameras had been announced the week before at PMA, primarily to retailers. It was not surprising, therefore, to witness crowds around Kodak and Canon’s booths as photographers got hands-on demonstrations of the cameras’ capabilities. Canon also had some new digital EOS lenses on display. At Nikon’s booth, the company displayed its new AF-S DX Nikkor 18–70mm f/3.5–4.5G IF-ED lens, as well as the Nikon D70, D2H SLRS and the new Coolscan scanners. Meanwhile, Epson showed the new 4000 printer and the new 4870 scanner, and Fujifilm talked about the Finepix S2 Pro and forthcoming S3. Another unveiling was Norman’s line of monolights with built-in PocketWizard radio receivers. Some of the other hot products featured at the WPPI Trade Show were the Olympus E-1, the Minolta/Konica 2350 EN laser printer and Tamron digital lenses. The trade show was a great place to see all the medium format cameras, and Hasselblad, Mamiya and Contax were showing digital solutions as well. Besides “digital,” the big buzzword was “color management.” ColorVision had new products on display and Monaco showed the new OPTIXXR—a tool for profiling CRT and LCD monitors—along with the rest of the company’s extensive line of software and hardware color management tools. Monaco also co-sponsored, with WPPI, this year’s popular, and practical, attendee gift—a black tote bag.
Two anniversaries were celebrated this year. Tri-X turned 25 and Ilford turned 125. To celebrate, Ilford had an extended assortment of new products, from Galerie inkjet papers to Studio System printers. More inkjet media choices were there from Lexjet, Media Street and others. All the big labs and equipment manufacturers exhibited. It was a great opportunity to find out about new technology available from Durst and ZBE. Other exhibitors proved it’s easier than ever to deal with your labs online. Eventpix demonstrated their latest software. Kodak introduced ProShot Basics, and Fujifilm displayed the latest Studiomaster Pro. And, if you were looking for a different kind of final presentation you could see how to output custom CD/DVDs at the Primera booth and how to bind your own albums by visiting the ExactBindWest booth. Two unique booths featuring less tangible products were the Professional Photographic Schools booth and the Santa Fe Workshops booth. The Professional Photographic Schools have been featured in recent issues of Rangefinder in “School Spotlight.” These schools—the Triangle Institute, Bahamas International School of Photography, New England Institute, California Photographic Workshops, Texas School, Illinois Workshops, Oklahoma School, West Coast School, and Image Explorations—offer educational programs for every level of photographer. Show Guide For people who didn’t already know which companies to visit, the more accessible “Product Guide” lists companies by category—with over 100 categories. A quick glance at this “Yellow Pages” for the trade show could tell an attendee the names of the 48 companies displaying album products. It could also tell you where to find motorized rollers, mount boards or information about insurance programs. In the “Product Guide” under the heading “New Media,” you will find several companies that offer new and different ways of displaying photos: the Great Alaskan Bowl Company, Light Affection, Picture Yourself and Stone Image & Design, Inc. There are also 11 digital headings in the product guide. Other exhibitors included 23 companies with software products, six companies with products for school photography, 18 companies offering frames, and a wide variety of other offerings. Finally, in the “Trade Show” portion of the WPPI Show Guide is the “Exhibitor Directory.” This alphabetical listing of exhibitors’ addresses, phone numbers and web sites can also, temporarily, be found on WPPI’s web site. Another informative feature is the Guide’s 33 “Rf Cookbooks.” Readers of Rangefinder will be familiar with these typically one-page recipes to great photos. Rangefinder asked the convention’s platform speakers to choose a “signature” photo, which was then profiled in a “Cookbook.” Programs Newly featured at this year’s convention were the school photography programs. Approximately 400–500 photographers attended these classes about senior and underclass photography. A MasterClass and several Platform presentations addressed the school market, as well. In addition, there were two Imageware panels focusing on digital in the school market, and each day there was a one-hour “Lunchtime Madness” program. Besides seniors, there are many opportunities available in school photography. Sports, dances, yearbooks, and ID cards were just some of the possibilities featured in these school programs. Although the bulk of the programming started Monday, there were several events Sunday. That afternoon Monte Zucker and Patrick Rice hosted a print critique, where the two dissected entries from the 2004 16x20 competition. And later that day, after Louise and Joseph Simone’s program, “Unveiling the Spirit Within,” the week officially began with the opening night party/reception, “Fast Times at WPPI.” This year’s theme was high school retro. While many people didn’t dress the part, there was an entertaining scattering of prom dresses and letter jackets. After the dinner, drinks and music, attendees headed over to Michele Celentano’s WPPI kickoff program. The program began by showing images from each of the week’s platform speakers as they were all introduced. If attendees didn’t already know just how big this year’s WPPI Convention was going to be, they began to get the idea about halfway through the introductions. Then Michele presented her program. This renowned wedding photographer from Arizona said, just a couple of years ago at WPPI, she couldn’t imagine converting to digital. Now, as the keynote speaker during the kickoff, and having totally converted to digital, she spent the better part of two hours singing the praises of digital imaging and exciting the hundreds of attendees with her exuberance. Also popular were the three huge Epson/Adobe programs in the Jubilee Theatre. Photographic legends Jay Maisel, Greg Gorman, and Steve McCurry, as well as Adobe’s Julieanne Kost spoke to the large crowds of photographers filling the theatre on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. During his program on Monday, Maisel advised photographers, “Expressive moments happen fast, so make no preconceptions. Simply, be filled up with the image.” Don Blair taught attendees at his program to “use just the edge of the light.” During Ken Sklute’s program with Jonathan Penney, Ken advised, “Use others’ work as a springboard for new ideas. Keep a scrapbook of inspirational images. Don’t be afraid to explore dead ends, and don’t fear failure. Stop over-controlling the image. Try to have fun.” MasterClasses & WPPI Plus Several of the classes, such as Joe Photo’s class and Anthony and Frank Cava’s class, went on “field trips” to shoot on-location, in and around BALLY’s. As with the Platform classes, the topics for the MasterClasses were diverse: posing, album design, workflow, inkjet, seniors, weddings and more. Students in Michael Ayers’ seminar learned marketing secrets behind FTP, artistic album arrangements and studio menus. Doug Box and Doug Gordon blended artistic suggestions with a focus on the bottom line, giving profitable, practical business techniques. Bambi Cantrell asserted, contrary to popular belief, “You can learn creativity.” Curt Littlecott showed his students how to blend fashion and editorial styles. Joe Buissink taught his students to be human tripods: “Take a stance with your feet apart, elbow on hip. Breathe in. Hold. Fire off three shots and at least one will be sharp.” Australian David Williams, self-proclaimed ex-lab “slave,” provided ideas to get the most work out of inkjet printers, including a profitable proofing system. He denied the inkjet’s reputation for poor quality, saying, “I’ve repeatedly done competition prints on my 1280 Epson.” For the second year, WPPI offered WPPI Plus classes. These two-day, intensive programs, held on the Thursday and Friday before the convention, were limited to 20 attendees per class. Students got to learn about Photoshop from Julieanne Kost, lighting in the digital age from Tony Corbell, wedding photography from Bambi Cantrell, digital album design from Rick and Deborah Ferro, weddings with digital from Anthony Cava or transitioning to digital from Kevin Kubota. These classes were held in suites at BALLY’s, but several included on-location shooting and all included hands-on practice. Awards of Excellence Competition Print judging was divided into different panels: wedding, portrait/digital, photojournalism and premier, and for several of the panels, judging went well into evening. On Wednesday night the awards program, hosted by Calvin Hayes and Clay Blackmore, opened with the WPPI-produced DVD, entitled “In Your Time,” featuring photography from a dozen of WPPI’s most-recognized members. The majority of the evening featured the presentation of the 16x20 print and album competition winners while the winning images were shown on screen. J.B. Sallee, the Hy Sheanin Memorial Scholarship winner, was also recognized for his accomplishment at the awards show. Kodak, co-sponsor of the evening with WPPI and Flora Professional Albums, announced their Awards of Distinction. These awards went to the two photographers who entered three or more prints and received the highest average scores in the WPPI Awards of Excellence Print Competition for 2004. The second place winner was George Trifunovic, whose prints scored an average of 87. The first place winner was Monique Feil, whose prints scored an average of 89. Attendees Putting the “international” in WPPI, were attendees from all over the globe. There were 23 countries represented this year. Apart from the United States (with photographers from every one of the 50 states in attendance), the most-represented countries were Australia, Canada, England, Japan, and Mexico. Photographers came from countries as diverse as Indonesia, Russia, Sweden and Panama. Next year’s WPPI Convention and Trade Show will be held March 17–24 at BALLY’s, Las Vegas. Trade Show dates are March 21–23, 2005. For more about this year’s convention see John Rettie’s article on page 52. 1. Tony Corbell’s program on seeing light
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