Scott Detweiler
Pre Convention and Featured Speaker
Pre Convention Class
From Overwhelmed to In Control: Using AI to Streamline and Strengthen Your Art
Are you a photographer feeling the pressure to innovate while constantly battling a serious time crunch? You're not alone! AI is reshaping the creative landscape, and it’s crucial to understand how to leverage it without sacrificing your artistic vision. This isn’t about replacing your skills; it’s about amplifying them. During this session, we'll demystify AI-powered tools like MidJourney, DreamStudio, and Firefly, and show you how to seamlessly integrate them into your existing Photoshop workflow. We'll tackle your biggest concerns – from mastering advanced masking techniques to confidently using AI to enhance, not replicate, your style. Don’t fall behind! Bring your laptop – a comfortable, functioning machine with the latest Photoshop – and get ready to level up your composite skills and stay ahead of the curve. This is your chance to embrace the future of photography and confidently deliver extraordinary results.
Location TBA to be held in Mt Juliet
Sept 18th 9am-5pm
Convention Class - Friday
Lighting with Conviction - All Skill Levels
Class Type - Live Demonstration - (lecture and shooting)
This is often called "the only lighting-class you will ever need", as it distills down the concepts of lighting into 4 easily digestible concepts. The goal of this class is to have the student feel confident in not only lighting based on the vision in their mind, but also being able to reverse engineer images they see. Class participants gain confidence in knowing which modifier to select, where to position it, and further how to expose based on the creative eye. Moreover, this seminar is easily understood by all levels of photographers and helps fill in gaps where guessing tends to happen when under pressure to produce great images. We will also learn how to dominate at the “one and done” challenge, which I play with all students during the conference.
About Scott
Initially, I became interested in Photoshop over a decade ago when it still came on floppy disks. My motivation to actually focus on photography came when I realized that no matter how I modified an image it was never truly mine, mentally or legally. I could paint or manipulate the image for hours or days, and never actually own.
The decision to start shooting my own stock started me on the journey I am on today. My initial challenges were basically lighting related. I could envision the image I wanted, but getting the lights to cooperate was a constant source of frustration. To get past this I shot as often as possible, and by changing small variables each time I learned how my alterations were affecting my images.
As a Physics major, I enjoy the technical aspects of photography. I like to know my camera settings, angles, focus depth, fall-off, as well as other aspects of the scene that directly affect the result. By understanding how an image will look at 24mm versus 200mm, or when lit by a larger or smaller apparent light source, it becomes easier to make creative decisions.
In our studio challenge each other to set up complete scenes and take a single photo without test shots. This has greatly improved our abilities to create successful scenes from our imagination, even on location or group shoots where planning isn't much of an option. We are always learning and trying new ideas.
Our challenges now lie in finding dependable muses, unique designers, and amazing stylists that can work in collaboration. I am quite blessed with a bevy of such individuals here in the Milwaukee area, where we can additionally pull talent from Green Bay, Madison, and Chicago when needed.
Most of my work is now commercial photography and retouching as well as shooting fashion. I do corporate headshots as well as catalog and magazine work, but love the occasional commission for something much more artistic.
Teaching others is something I enjoy doing via workshops, speaking engagements, or traveling to shoots as often as possible. I also do themed shoots, workshops on lighting, posing, and post-production seminars that are open to the public at my studio near Milwaukee, WI.
I love passing on my knowledge to those who are now facing similar frustrations with the technical aspects of this awesome artistic outlet.