Headed to Seattle: Open Mic Day

I am in the air all day living on teeny tiny bags of peanuts, headed to the Seattle seminars this weekend. Which means that your pithy comments will languish unmoderated all day long, as the captain just hates it when I screw up the plane's nav system with my cellphone internet connection.

If you are coming to either of the seminars, I will see you this weekend. I would say that I will be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when we start up at 9:00am each day, but "bushy-tailed" usually does not apply until about 10:30. I'll fake it with Diet Mountian Dew until then.

Bring your PayPal email from the purchase transaction (I have a list also though) something on which to makes notes, a camera with a wide lens (if you want to shoot the setups) and an open mind. We're gonna have fun.


Testing: 1,2,3...

Speaking of my incommunicado status all day Thursday, I want to make use of it just like when I went to London earlier this year: It's open mic time. What would you like to see more of on the site?

And before you answer, let me clue you in to some of the things that are on tap in the coming months:

First, we have readers who are doing some awesome stuff. And a person can take seeing just my own photos for only so long before feeling an itch in the roof of his mouth that only the cold steel of a gun barrel could scratch. So I am going to be making better use of the group expertise that exists within the readership of this site. There are over 100,000 of you, after all.

I will be reaching out to some of the very best shooters that submit in the Strobist Flickr stream and interviewing them on how their photos were created. Setup shots, process shots, diagrams, how-to notes - whatever we can get together. I want to refocus the very best this group has to offer back towards the entire readership.

As a group, you all can shoot me into the ground. And it is nuts to let that resource go unused. There are so many photos that I want to know more about.

Second, I will be reaching out to some of the very best lighting photographers in the world to interview them about the craft. Techniques, tricks, motivation -- everything. I have many people in mind, but I would love to hear who you particularly admire. Hit me with some URL's in the comments.

Third, I am working on several FAQ's which will hopefully answer some of the questions I am repeatedly asked. (And you might be surprised at what some of them are.)

And finally, I want to introduce you to some of the people who you are specifically benefitting by your reading this blog, and/or attending a seminar. They are doing some cool things -- in some far away places -- as a direct result of this little Web 2.0 experiment we have going on.

So, without being swayed by the moderated comments of anyone else, give us all a shout-out with any ideas you may have in the comments section. I will moderate them Thursday night if you are interested in seeing what the crowd had to say.

I know that I am looking forward to reading your suggestions.

(SWA 737 Belly by Strobist reader Wirehead.)