The Photography Workshop - Day 1

Today was the first day of a four day Photography conference cum workshop I'm attending.
Here's a quick glimpse of the ups and downs.

~ All of us (Me, and classmates) reached the venue without our camera's. We figured we'd only have lectures and such today. Got way intimidated when we saw practically everyone else there arrive with humongous camera bags and loads of equipment. Rushed back to our respective home's to get our camera's before the event started (Huge waste of time and money and effort as you'll see soon).

~ Sat through the terribly organized inaugration program. Almost all...no...All of the organizers, or rather all the members of the organization that organized the event seemed to be above 50 years of age. The person making the announcements and inviting the important guest faculty etc. on stage was the epitome of the word 'Clueless'. A few of the faculty members even managed to doze off on the stage while the schedule for the day etc. were being explained. Everyone seemed to keep insulting everyone else! (Hard to explain...can't find the right words...you should have been there...Rest assured, I was embarrassed for the whole lot of them!)

~ Attended two work shops, on - Macro photography (we'd already learnt the stuff this guy was talking about and his photographs were'nt that great), Composition (the lecture was ok...this guy's photograph's were amazing! Wish I could shoot like that) and one short one on video shooting, which I was'nt interested in at all.

~ More about the Video workshop: As a part of the workshop, they decided to show us some video on lighting, but there appeared to be some prblem with the cd player. So while they were trying to fix the problem, I started doodling on the notepad we were given in the morning. One of the delegates had brought his family along and his little boy (named Cezanne) was peeking over my shoulder the whole time. He appeared really interested in what I was drawing. So on an impulse, I drew this little picture of him and handed it over to him. His dad ( this guy with long hair and glasses who would've probably made a striking portrait!) asked him to get me to sign it and I did before handing it back to him as a keepsake (To Cezanne, from Amber). Lol...it felt so weird and nice at the same time!
Oh, and when the problem was finally fixed, we were treated to this really stupid short film that was supposed to give us an overview of the various lighting techniques - all I can say is that, it had a guy with scuba diving gear on, wandering around trying to figure out the tricks 'Dr. Lighting' had up his sleeve, after which he disappered back into the sea!! (Don't ask).

~ And the best part was that none of the workshops required a camera, and inspite of having one or two opportunities to shoot somethign good, I simply could'nt muster any enthusiasm for it at the time. I think that was partly because I knew I was expected to shoot just because it was a workshop and everyone else was...shooting i.e....Am I making sense? :)

Well, that's it about Day1. Have to go back at 9:30 tommorrow morning for Day 2.

I'm off to watch 'Cheaper by the Dozen 2' now, so adios! :)