Public Speaking or Photography in Seminars

lisatiffany

Has anyone ever done a seminar or talk on photography? and if so how did it go? what aspects did you discuss?

I swore I'd never do a public speaking about photography but I did one tonight as part music industry seminar. I was talking about music photography (mostly live and events) about how important it is when it comes to a bands image and about the difficulties in getting images worth using on albums / press packs / sites and that kind of thing.

It was terrifying in the first 5 to 10 minutes and I was up first which made it worse ..but eventually once I really got talking it was a lot more comfortable. I also did really well with the Q & A's session at the end so I'm chuffed with that. There were 3 other guest speakers -

STEVE AVERILL

Steve began his career in the creative industry as a advertising art director. He eventually became the creative director of an upcoming agency before setting up a dedicated design consultancy that specialized in entertainment and music industry projects. During the 1980s and 90s, they worked with most of the best Irish-based acts, including The Dubliners, The Hothouse Flowers, Aslan and Clannad.

Some international clients with whom they worked have included Elvis Costello (when he was an Irish resident), Depeche Mode, and renowned photographers including Anton Corbijn, Jill Furmanovsky and Brian Griffen. There have also been a host of UK and Irish bands and solo artists since that time.

In the current incarnation as AMP Visual, Averill works with designers Shaughn McGrath and Gary Kelly for such international acts as The Script, Nashville-based artists Dierks Bentley, and The Mavericks — as well as continuing his long-term relationship with U2.

Averill, under his stage name of Steve Rapid, continues to perform with his Radiators from Space colleagues as The Trouble Pilgrims. The Radiators from Space last year released an acclaimed album Sound City Beat on the Chiswick label.

NIALLER9

Niall Byrne is a blogger at the helm of the most-read music blog in Ireland - Nialler9.com and a writer based in Dublin.

Nialler9.com has been a recipient of five consecutive awards in the Irish Blog Awards for Best Music Blog (2007-2011) as well as Best Music Site at the Irish Web Awards in 2009. Most recently, Nialler9 was voted the 5th Best Music Blog In The World in a poll of music blogging peers.

Niall also curated gigs internationally at SXSW 2011 in Austin, Texas & Camden Crawl, London in 2011 as well as locally for Hard Working Class Heroes, Camden Crawl’s Dublin edition and Minimum Maximum – a series of gigs for the Monster Truck Gallery.

AIDAN FOLEY

Aidan started out recording Gospel and Chimurenga music in Zimbabwe in the early 80's. This is where he first got the chance to get behind the cutting desk of a Gramma Records VMS 70 disc cutting lathe. After studying at the Recording Workshop in Ohio, USA in 1988, he moved to Dublin and within a few years he was producing/engineering for the likes of Christy Moore, Rollerskate Skinny and My Bloody Valentine. Aidan spent the rest of the early nineties producing bands in studios all over the world, but his favorite part of the process was always flying over to London to studios such as Abbey Road or Metropolis for 'The Cut'.
It was here that he started to learn the fundamentals of a good mastering job.

Today Aidan has over fifteen years experience mastering audio in all genres of music. If you've spoken to Aidan you'll know that he has a passion for great sounding audio. Despite his heavy work schedule he always finds time to go surfing as well as restoring his classic valve cutting lathe amps.

To date Aidan has worked and continues to collaberate with an impressive collection of artists which include:
U2
Van Morrison
Foo Fighters
Sinead O’Connor
Christy Moore
Republic of Loose
James V. McMorrow
Damien Rice
Paul Brady
Fionn Reegan
Kila
Horslips
Damien Dampsey
Sean O’Riada

So scary stuff! but what I came away from it was this ..if you are ever asked to talk about any aspects of photography and want to say no because of nerves/etc you should just go ahead and do it.

pullandbang

First up, well done you! It's a daunting task and you seemed to have been in very eminent company, so even more pressure.

There's is nothing easy about standing in front of a room full of strangers and giving a presentation. You really need to know your subject but as you say, once you get over the first few minutes, your confidence builds and you just get on with it. In fact you will probably enjoy it (if your mouth and throat don't dry up ).

So thumbs up and well done.