Diving into the sky

Diving into the sky, originally uploaded by Photomike07.

After a ridiculously long day of travel yesterday, I finally arrived here in Austin. As I've said before, many times, its all perspective. For me, a 5 hour plane delay in Atlanta means only one thing, its time to scramble over to Concourse E for some sushi and a glass of Cote de Rhone!

Luck of the draw has found me here at Trey Ratcliff's first ever HDR workshop. I must say that after 13 hours, I am wondering where the time went! Trey has long been sort of an internet artistic mentor to me, so it was really cool to be able to attend to meet him face to face. His unique view of art, vision, and photography is always very insightful. After starting the class out with a little foundational theory and perspective, he launched into a little healthy critique of a few images. This process is always quite useful to the developing artist in all of us. Soon after that, the whole class explored a bit of the historical Driskall Hotel for a little shooting instruction and demo. We then scoured the lobby and bar interiors looking for our own unique perspectives. Soon after reconvening in the class, it was time to watch Trey work his magic. After viewing hundreds of his images over the past couple of years, it was really cool to watch the process from start to finish. After some intense processing and finishing techniques, it was time to head out to dinner with the gang to a place called the Oasis. Over looking several lakes, this multi level restaurant has a million open patios cut into the hillside (kinda like Santorini) to explore while capturing the incredible Texas sun paint the sky with its brilliant warmth. Oh yeah, its pretty freakin' cold here!

After dinner, it was time for a bit more processing and casual classroom instruction. I must say, I have picked up a few tips and am really happy I was able to be part of this inaugural event. For those of you who weren't able to get in, first off, sorry about that! Maybe he'll do a few more of these, you never know. If so, I definitely recommend it!

This image above was created today from a shot or two from the the Oasis restaurant, and a couple of textures as well. The new package of 150 were also included in the workshop. Cool, very cool!

Looking forward to tomorrow!