Sorry to have been such a flake on the blog lately. Life got pretty weird at the mother ship (the day job) in the last few months and it has completely taken the wind out of me. I have no idea if it is the start of something good, or the continuation of a very slow boil, to which, in the end, I find I am a lobster in a pot.

While I have neglected the blog, I have not neglected my personal and free lance work, and I am very excited to show you all, i.e. my parents and two other people who read this, what I have been up to.

First, and maybe the most recent is that the blog past its first anniversary last month. Not really a milestone in my opinion, but it ties into what happen just a few weeks ago.

If you hit the back button on the blog enough times, you will see I started the blog right about the same time I journeyed down to Paso Robles to help my friend, fellow Canonista, and mad man Syl Arena, for the start of his workshop series. His first instructor was Joe McNally, and it was my pleasure to assist him during the workshop. You can catch up here, here and here if you are new to the whole story.

A month ago, a similar situation presented itself. I heard that Joe would be in my neck of the woods, in the fine capital of California, Sacramento. He was in town to teach for the Kelby Seminars, and I wanted to catch up again. I was very fortunate that Joe not only said yes, but let me be second assistant for the day.

It should be noted that as a native Nevadan, if I can get to a place in less than 16 hours of driving, it is a short drive.

Joe did inform me that this was his general lighting seminar and that I may find it a bit boring. I, of course, told him he was out of his mind. Even though much of what Joe shows seminars has a similar feel, the direction of each course is so different and you can learn something new every time you watch Joe work.

Great teachers have that quality, that in teaching the same topic, they approach it with a new direction and energy every time. So no matter the experience level or how many times you have seen that particular teacher, you learn something new.

Now before you think that working for Joe is a dream job, I want to let you know that it was one of the hardest days of assisting I have ever had. The day started before the sun was up, and including the coolest Denny’s visit of all time, and it ran into the early evening. Even when the attendees were given breaks, we were tearing down one setup, and quickly putting up another one. The morning session was a bit of a slower pace, as Joe moves from on camera flash, to off camera, to multiple flashes. But in the afternoon, you head starts to spin with all the different lighting scenarios that Joe wants to demonstrate, sometimes creating a lighting situation just to answer a students question. Which means tearing down and setting up more gear, which Joe has a ton of.

The brains, and brawn, behind all of Joe’s gear is the mighty Drew Gurian. I had talked with Drew on the phone once, and exchanged a few conversations over Twitter, but this was my first face to face meeting with him. Drew is just amazing. He can read Joe’s mind and anticipate his request many times before Joe asks it. Don’t be fooled, Drew makes it look easy, but there is some serious prep time involved to get to that point.

My job was not so simple, trying and flow with Joe and Drew, while under the pressure of working in front of 500 plus person audience. All the while, Joe is mocking me, to the delight of the crowd, himself, and of course, Drew. I took it all in stride, because working for Joe is like working with Don Rickles, but with 10 SB-900s.

One of my favorite moments was Joe having me bring three ladies from the Battle Born Derby Demons, the flat track roller derby team from Reno. I am of course their official photographer, so Joe suggested bringing a few members of the team to add to the fun and experience of the seminar. The ladies were a little intimidated by the amount of people who would come to watch a photographer show off some lighting techniques. I think they were expecting a few people, but no hundreds. They obviously did not know the power of McNally. It was great to see how well the ladies worked with Joe, and how much fun was had by everyone.

If you haven’t attended one of these seminars with Joe, it is pretty staggering at how many different lighting setups are shown during the day. From a simple single speedlight on and off camera, to an overview of large lights like the Elinchrom Rangers and Quadras, it is a better question to ask, what doesn’t Joe McNally talk about during the day.

And as I mentioned before, even someone that has seen Joe McNally demonstrate these skills before, there is always something new to learn. Two items stood out to me during the seminar. First was Joe demonstrating how far you can place a Speedlight and still trigger it with a pop-up flash on a Nikon camera. I held a SB-900 and had to walk out of the room, in a brightly, sun lit hallway, and found that the pop-up flash on Joe’s camera would keep triggering the SB unit, even with all of that distance and sunlight.

I think Joe needs more SB-900s

I think Joe needs more SB-900s

The second piece of information that really opened my eyes was how far away you can place a flash, with the correct settings, from a subject and still create a dramatic effect for your photography.

I want to thank both Joe and Drew for letting me tag along and I hope I didn’t slow them down too much, and I hope I provided enough comic relief for them and the audience. I also want to thank Joe’s studio manager, Lynn Delmastro, for helping me with lodging and answering any questions that I had. And of course the fine people at Kelby training, for putting Joe on the road, so we can all learn from him. I hope I get to do it again, soon.