Scenes from the Google+ Photographer’s Conference

Hi Gang: Sorry for the late post today —- I got in off a red-eye and I’m still blurry-eyed this morning, but I wanted to share some images from the conference out in San Francisco this week.

What an incredible event! The sold-out conference had an energy and vibe perhaps even beyond that of Photoshop World, and the photographers there were engaged at a level that had a smile on everybody’s face the whole time.

My thanks to everyone at Google who made the event happen (big shout out to Francois, Jenny, Mike, Brian and Vincent), to all the incredible instructors who gave their time, expertise and heart; to my crew here at Kelby Media Group (high-fives to Dave, Kathy, Julie, Tom, the Photoshop Guys, and a special thanks to my wife Kalebra who came up with a lot of the ideas for the conference, but sadly didn’t get to be there to see the “birth” of this new conference (even though she wasn’t there, her presence was felt throughout). Here’s why she couldn’t be there.

Also, thanks to Google co-founder Sergey Brin who make a surprise appearance at the conference to publicly show the much talked about “Google Glass” project (see the photos below) which totally blew everybody away. Amazing technology!

Here’s a few photos (courtesy of our own RC Concepcion — thanks man!) from the event to give you a glimpse of the going’s on. Lot smote info to come, but for now, here’s a quick peek:

Above: Here’s a shot of the main theater during the opening keynote

Above: Here’s a shot taken during my live “Crush The Composition” class.

Above: Google VP Bradley Horowitz during his opening keynote presentation

Above: Here I’m fielding live questions for Bradley from the audience via an iPad

Above: We had three training rooms, and here’s a panel from the “Forum” classroom. From L to R: Catherine Hall, Nicole Young, Brian Matiash, Colby Brown (holding cute baby), and Matt Kloskowski.

Above: Jeremy Cowart in one of our “one-on-one” portfolio reviews. By the way; we did an after-hours session called “An evening with Jeremy Cowart” that just blew everybody away. It was the talk of the conference!

Above: Here’s a shot of the Registration desk during calmer times. From L to R: Dianne Brisson, Paul Wilder, Victor Garcia, Kathy Siler and hidden is 1/2 of our Conference Director’s head, Julie Stephenson.

Above: Matt Kloskowski on stage during one of his sessions in the Forum.

Above: Guy Kawasaki, an avid photographer himself, during his session on branding in the main theater. Guy rocked it!!!!

Above: A view of the crew backstage.

Above: That’s Frederick Van and the gang from Pixel Corps who were handling the live streaming duties backstage.

Above: Peter Hurley and Catherine Hall hanging out in the audience.

Above: That’s Peter Hurley during his “Art of the Headshot” presentation.

Above: Guy on-stage with a live panel joining him via a Google+ Hangout.

Above: Guy  after his sessions talking with Dave Gales and yours truly.

Above: Alex Kolosov during his live product shoot.

Above: From my live “Crush the Composition” class.

Above: The panel from our live “Blind Critiques” session. From L to R: Trey Ratcliff, Jeremy Cowart, Me, and Matt Kloskowski.

Above: Erik Valind absolutely killed in his live shoot sessions!

Above: Google co-founder Sergey Brin makes a surprise guest appearance at the Conference to demonstrate the Google Glass project. The crowd was just blown away! (Photo by Brad Moore). 

Above: Brad snapped a photo of Sergey and me after his presentation (note Sergey’s Google Glass). Photo by Brad Moore.

Above: Sergey invited a group of conference attendees and instructors to join him for an impromptu Photo Walk and everybody got to try out the Google Glass for themselves. Serious, how cool is that!

I have so much more to share, and I will in the coming days, but I want to once again thank Google for sponsoring the event as a whole, and to thank our participating sponsors whose support make a huge difference, including Peachpit Press, B&H Photo, Smugmug, MPIX, Adobe, Wacom, FJ Westcott, Adorama, BorrowLenses.com, OnOne Software, Bay Photo, and Nik Software. We couldn’t have done it without you!

More to come! :)