I spent last week in Birmingham and visited the Focus On Imaging 2009 photography expo. It is my very first time attending such an event. It was almost as I expected it.
I had expected stalls selling stuff. I hadn’t expected hard sell. I had expected presentations. I hadn’t expected thinly veiled sales pitches. And I had expected to meet interesting people. But I hadn’t expected so much clambering for my credit card. Basically, I enjoy photography purely for fun, so I’ve never really encountered the hard face of the business side. I got a scary glimpse of that at the expo.
Everywhere was sell sell sell. There were people selling gear to photographers, guides to photographers, albums to photographers, software to photographers, almost everything you could possibly want from super expensive medium format Hasselblads to lens wipes were available. Almost everything; I couldn’t find any SB28′s.
The presentations
There were numerous presentations held at various booths and stages throughout the day – with many happening at the same time so that when I tired of one, I could simply wander to another.
Some presentations were good, they started with information, tips and tricks or suggestions and they would segue into a sales pitch. Pretty much all of the software presentations were very small tips on how to do something in their own software which unbelievably no other software could do, and therefore, you really needed to buy it – apparently. Some presentations were horrible slick snake-oil hard-sells trying to push silver bullet gadgets that would solve photography problems. I really hope that people were not suckered into buying such junk. While listening to anything from any stall holder, I had to have my metal filtering and bullshit-guard turned all the way up to 10!
One of the more popular presentations was the strobist demos by The Flash Center. They gave a very brief overview of what strobist was that would confuse anyone who was not familiar with it, and bore anyone who was. But after setting up some gear and taking some shots, it became clear. It was weird that even though they were using cheap stands, flashes and umbrellas, they were taking the photos with a £25,000 PhaseOne camera. It was also weird that they would show the shots on a few monitors and try to explain why one was better than the other thanks to some strobist concept and their gear, but the differences were sometimes too subtle to perceive in such a rapid presentation. The only thing I got out of it was how big some of the stands that I am interested in are, and that many people are interested in strobism.
The PocketWizard demos were also popular, no doubt because of the strobism popularity. I was interested in the new TTL PocketWizard but there was actually very little hard info them other than release dates and that they’ll sync at 1/500th. I’ll wait for reviews.
Another popular presentation was on freelance work by RedEye. The reason that it was popular was obvious; many prosumers would like to make some money, but also the presentation was factual. It was sales-lite. Sadly, I got a phone call and missed most of it.
At one demo, a person asked the speaker “how can you justify your high prices (to take photos)?”. The presenter then gave a little rant about Flickr folk “who suddenly think that they can take good photos and so they start doing jobs”. It was clear that this is a tetchy subject for him. I wonder if they person who asked it knew that – if he did, well done :) Ultimately the presenter did not give a good answer, or even any real answer, but he showed that he was angry and perhaps a more little scared of the encroaching Flickrities. Another presenter also conveyed the same sentiment – that Flickr people were not worthy, and that they were probably eating into his business. Perhaps I can understand why they might be losing business; the photos taken by those two presenters might be good, but I wouldn’t want to sit down and share a drink with them!
Software
It should not haven been a surprise to me, but it was – there was a huge amount of software being pushed. Either library management or just plain old photo-editing. I never knew that there was so much available, but I have never looked before.
Sadly, I can’t think of a single software demo that was good. Everyone single one would give a few tips, and then explain why their software was the best and how it was absolutely the one that you wanted. I wondered if people would ask good questions at the end, so I hung around listening to a PhaseOne software demo, but the questions were all about the photos themselves and the photographer who had made the presentation. They all probably felt the same as me, “enough of the software, tell me, how did you get that shot?”.
There were also lots of accompanying DVD covering pretty much everything – tutorials or guides on how to use some piece of software, a camera, how to take protrait shots and on and on and on. It was rare if a presentation completed without some mention of a DVD, especially if it was being given by photography on behalf of a software company, then he (I never saw a female presenter) would also push his own photography DVD as well.
Gear
There was tonnes and tonnes of gear to goggle at. The things impressed me the most were the huge printers slowly churning out fantastic prints, and surprisingly, the film medium format cameras. I liked the film medium format cameras for their engineering – and using the light table to look at some amazing shots. There was only one other film booth that I could find, everything else was digital.
Well, not everything was digital. There were bags, tripods, reflectors, books, insurances, places to study photography… so much to see. And that was good – I was able to browse so much in a day with some easy wondering, and actually see the items for real, try them out and ask questions, instead of just seeing picture on a website. What was lacking were all the (hopefully impartial) reviews that are available on the web. I don’t think that I would buy anything without at least reading some reviews – maybe that is why I didn’t buy a single thing.
There were some good deals being offered. Discounts on many things brand new and even bigger discounts on demo items. One that stood out was Nikon Capture NX on sale for only £50 (instead of the usual £100+).
There was an interesting product that I had never heard of before but obviously it is not a new idea since there were a few competing offers from different photographers. And it did seem to be only photographers who were selling this, not any particular store. They were selling flash cards on “How to shot a wedding”. The small deck of cards, usually held together by a metal ring, show what shots to take for a wedding. Each card had an example of a shot, and some text describing it. The idea is that you can simply follow the instructions and examples on the cards and cover the whole wedding. Quite a good idea I though for people who have never done wedding or have no idea on how to do it. But I didn’t buy one – they were outlandishly overpriced!
The people
But this was the best part – I meet loads of interesting people and enjoyed talking them most. Of course, they were not the ones trying to sell me something. The first thing that they want to establish is what kind of photographer you are – amateur, pro… – then, what you photograph – portaits, landscapes… – and then, what gear to do you use – Nikon, Canon, HasselBlad… Once through the techno-geek babel and comparing “my flux capacitor is bigger than your flux capacitor”, it was good to talk with them.
So, would I go again?
The easy answer is no. Not unless I had a shopping list and knew that the good deals would probably be available for the gear I wanted. Everything else, I can get from the web or friends. Without the hard-sell. Maybe it is more suited to pros with bigger budgets – but there was a MooCard booth :)
Oh, and I got kicked off the Hasselblad stand for using my Nikon :)
