It was a big weekend for the photo industry in New York at the Photo Plus Expo where vendors show their goods to the area’s photographic community. Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much in the way of big news to report. Nikon showed nothing new, and no rumors were leaked about the upcoming D3x and their MX format probably set to be announced first quarter 2009. There are only five pre-production Canon 5D II bodies in existence and it appeared a couple were on hand at the Canon booth. Epson probably had the neatest showing of new product with their new HDR printer technology. We were able to get a print signed by Jay Maisel of an image printed using the Epson HDR ink technology from the soon to be released Epson 9900 large format printer. The colors are quite vibrant!
Our prime purpose for attending the conference this year was two-fold. First, we met with a custom website development company, Livebooks, to begin the re-design of our website, www.kazarts.com, from the ground up to be able to better promote our photography business. They will work with us to design the site to our specifications and their programmers will optimize the site so that it will appear better in internet search queries. Part of the problem we noticed with our current website is that we are not visible unless someone types in my name (Eric Kazmirek), or Kaz Arts. How is this useful if someone does not know our name? Well, it isn’t useful at all.
The second reason for attending the Photo Expo was to meet up with friends of ours from Italy who we will begin working closely with in order to offer photography workshops in a country Kerry & I love very much. (Check back for details on these workshops over the next couple months). Italy, with its distinctly different regions, is a photographer’s dream. The idea behind our workshops will be not to just drag people around to the famous & touristy spots in the country, but to be immersed in the culture and discover the very many secrets Italy has to offer. A glimpse of this will be available in a near-future gallery posting by me, and a soon-to-be published book of a collection of my Italy work last time I was there to visit our friends.
Saturday evening after the conference, we took our friends to an authentic Sardinian restaurant on the lower east side of Manhattan named Cannonau. We have eaten there many times before and our Italian friends had a wonderful time speaking in Italian to the owners of the establishment. For dinner I had wild boar and Kerry enjoyed suckling pig, both fine Italian specialties.
Too bad it down poured on our way back to our friend’s apartment where we were spending the night. A soggy end to a great day.
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