Canon Expo 2010 New York – Day Two

If you missed last week’s blog, start here.

I arrived at the Javits Center around 9:40am for a 10:00 session and happily plopped down into a chair awaiting Douglas Kirkland’s arrival. Mr. Kirkland is well-known celebrity photographer with a long history of exclusive access and fabulous images. He’s one of my all-time faves. For those who don’t know, that’s my deepest desire, to be an in-demand celeb photog who is greatly respected by the people I photograph and my peers. Back to the story. Someone from the expo stepped on stage, welcomed us all, and introduced someone else. Alright, I thought I was in the right room. I grabbed my schedule and it backed up my thought. I stepped outside and found out a few seminars had been shifted around or canceled. Mr. Kirkland would be speaking at 12:30pm, the same time as another seminar I had signed up for about marketing. Not a difficult decision to make.

With over 2 hours to play I began exploring the various “lands”: The Customer Experience, Advancing Business, Journey of the Image, The Power of Synergy, Imaging for Life, Imaging for Tomorrow, Imaging the Possibilities, Beyond the Image, On Location, Gallery, and finally The New York Experience. The hub, if you will, was Canon Central. Alas there was no statue but there was much more comfortable seating.

Honestly, I don’t remember what order I did things in and it’s not all that important so let’s just look at some highlights.

I had overheard women in the restroom on Thursday talking about the free retinal scans and how the optometrists and ophthalmologist could tell you if there were any indications of Diabetes or Glaucoma.

There I was, waiting in a long line with about 12 people ahead of me and another 7 or 8 behind me and we were all excited. Seriously, we were. I’m not sure if it was because you could see and keep a photo of your eyes or because it was a free quick exam. Whatever it was, it was fairly quick and absolutely painless. I believe they used a CX-1 Hybrid Digital Mydriatic/Non-Mydriatic Retinal Camera. Don’t ask me what that means. I do know I got a clean bill of health and a very enthusiastic doc told me I have more oxygen in my eyes than most people.

That’s not me in the lab coat or holding what looks like a large plastic spoon over an eye.

Once again I took part in shooting a fashion show. However, I got there sooner and staked out the Canon 5D with the 70-200mm L IS. I have wanted that lens for years. Every fashion show is the same so having seen it before I already knew what to expect for the most part and I was ready for action.

Fashion photography bends portraiture rules. Good times.

Over yonder in the New York Experience area is where the Statue of Liberty stood about 1 staircase above the floor, ice skaters glided across a special rink, and stations were abound to test out Canon’s Image Stabilization in camcorders, digital cameras, and binoculars.

Does anyone else hear the song Lady in Red right now? I guess you had to be there.

I was on this “boat” not knowing it was a “boat” on the top level when all of a sudden it began to raise and lower. It took me by surprise and I was even more astonished by the vomit bags on display.

There’s no fabulous story about hanging out with the crew during lunch today. I didn’t eat until after the convention and at an actual dining establishment in a neighborhood. Yeah, I’m disappointed as well.

Finally noon rolled around and I sat in on Douglas Kirkland’s seminar. You’d never know from his high energy and stature that he’s 76 years old. He’s full of life and possibly well-preserved from years of touching Fix. We heard great stories about how he got his famous photos, who he worked for, what went right, what worked out, who he forgot, and most often he told us to go out there live our dreams. If you had walked in sad you would have left happy and smiling from ear to ear.

Once again, I made my way up to the front of the room after the seminar to meet the man. I showed him my photo of Elizabeth Taylor (he showed us his) and after saying that I want to further pursue his line of work, I offered him the opportunity to adopt me. He laughed and gently touched the side of my face. I was serious too, in an adopt-a-photographer kind of way.

Teach me! Teach me! I have a passport.

Before I dig into Corbin Bernsen, I should state that his session was on Thursday but it felt so long that I thought it carried over to Friday. Corbin, if you recall, was on L.A. Law several years back and is now on the show Psych. He liked to talk about his character on L.A. Law a lot. He enjoyed talking about himself, a lot. He talked about working as an actor on a slew of projects that were for the most part, in his words, a complete waste of time. He talked about his production company and making movies designed to go direct to DVD that are geared towards specific audiences. He asked himself why he was there and so did we. I believe the answer is, he likes Canon cameras and video cameras even though he isn’t the one filming…anything from what I gathered. Also, he wanted Canon to sponsor his projects, repeatedly. So, having nothing of professional and/or technical cinematography work to speak of, people quietly left one, three, five at a time and the room went from near capacity to near empty. Why was he there?

I asked him what the process was to take an idea for a TV show and bring it to the studios. He never answered the question. His response was that the guys who decide are on CBS’ 88th floor and did I really want to go up there. Yes. How does he think L.A. Law got on the air in the first place?!

Later on, as things were winding down for the day and I’d already gotten my free Wall St. replica sign from the ginormous graphics printer Oce Arizona 550XT, I sat and people watched. I leave you with what I think is a funny shot based on what I saw and how easy it was to place people into profession categories based on attire.

Guess which one is a photographer? Right, that was a trick question.

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