Got this lovely bleeding heart photo at a friend’s house in between bouts of rain.
I don’t remember how I first stumbled across CreativeLive but I think it was through LaRae Lobdell and PhotoSister, most likely through Twitter. I’m really glad I did discover them, though.
CreativeLive has made a business model of offering free online classes on a periodic basis (maybe monthly), via streaming media, by respected and known experts in various types of photography, Design and Technology. The class is free while it’s live streaming and you can buy class downloads for viewing after the class is over. The course list seems to be growing rapidly and you can see the entire course list here.
As I write this, I am just finishing attending my first CreativeLive class – Zach Arias teaching Foundations of a Working Photographer. Zach specializes in portrait and band photography which are nothing I tend to do but, even with that, I’ve learned quite a few tips already that have made sitting in front of the computer worthwhile. Tips on lenses and depths of field. Tips on lighting and positioning. A new mantra — “head in a clean spot” to live by!
The quality of streaming video was terrific for me, though I did see reports of outages in some places which the staff were racing to try to address (it wasn’t them, it was internet outages, it seems). The audio was well done and the production quality was quite high. There could be some refinements made on things like tethered shooting and maybe a good use of picture in picture for those instances where the camera was watching the instructor but the instructor was watching something we could not see. There was a LOT of content to watch – so much so that I’m buying the recorded version to go through again later. Just too much to process in one sitting and there are HOURS of it.
CreativeLive supports the class with two live chatrooms, including one you can use to ask questions of the instructors (via relay from the moderators). There are some great forums on their site as well. CreativeLive and their staff are active on Twitter and Facebook and you can create an account on the CreativeLive site, register for classes and get reminders of when they will occur.
The list of upcoming live sessions are currently:
- Food Photography with Penny De Los Santos – May 13, 2011
- Street Photography with Lighten Up and Shoot – July 29, 2011
- Rick Sammon Photography Weekend – October 21, 2011
This is a terrific resource and I hope you check it out. There are sponsors who both help keep it free for us to watch live and who offer giveaways during the class. There are terrific hosts, moderators, techs, editors, webmasters putting this resource together. I’d like to see it continue and the more people that know about it, the better.
Check out CreativeLive!
-
Great review, I too wish to spread the word as I have attended 4 classes now and purchased 4 for viewing again and again. It is great to learn more foundations to backup the years of trial and error. Every time I sit in on a session I do not intend to purchase the course for later viewing, but I have yet to sit through a session that I didn’t purchase.ReplyCancel
-
Thanks for stopping by Scott.
I was really impressed. The online course experience far outshone what I expected. Most of these I’ve attended were rather dry lectures and this was MUCH better.
I also bought the class download. There was simply so much information that I couldn’t remember it all as well as I think I’ll get even more out of it as I grow in skill and experience.
I stopped by your site and looked at your photos – really liked the nature and animals but was amazed by the rodeo ones!
My husband loves to play with fidget toys and his latest favorite are Zen Magnets – these are tiny spherical niodinium magnets, precision machined and sold in sets. He walked into my office late last night with a rather fun shape he’d made and we played around with it and lighting a bit to see what we got. I think I need to set up some more specific lighting, though, because these little guys are HARD to photograph well.
More photos after the cut.
This week’s office flowers are more tulips (they’re in season so I like to enjoy them while they are) and two stems of yellow lilies (also in season). I found myself fascinated by the stamen and pistils of the lilies and did some macro photography of them.
More close-ups after the cut.
I stumbled across a couple of people blogging about this new search service, written by Matt Burns, that will take an example photo from your stolen camera, then use the serial number embedded in the metadata of that picture to search for other pictures with that same serial number posted to the web. This is not done via a on-the-fly search of the entire internet (which would take a long time) but by looking for the serial number in a smaller database compiled by and for Stolen Camera.
If you aren’t missing your camera, you can help out a bit by running a Chrome browser extension that will record and anonymously submit data on any serial numbers found in photos you look at via Chrome to Stolen Camera Finder.
If you don’t have a sample photo, you do have the ability to manually enter a serial number as well.
Great idea and a good thing to bookmark. I went ahead and installed the Chrome extension just to help out.