How you put together a UW photo seminar?

I will hold soon my first seminar about my UW & model photography and i have really some issus to put together the shema. It will be 2 hours.

Most off those that will be there are photografers that have nothing to do with underwater photography

I was more thinking to show some off my photos. stay lite on some and tell about how they have been taken, maybe some funny story arount a photo. The pro & contras about shooting UW. Show equickment and talk lite technical about lenses, distrotion, light colors etc..

Off cource i will concetrate about my work and people underwater but still i am not sure.

I know many off you have done it before . att least Alex is a guru on this. So i am thankfull if someone give me some this or what they think is so important to tell or what poeple are intresting to know..

I've put together a number of presentations on my underwater photography to both divers & non-divers.

My one piece of advice is: try to remenber that your audience knows a LOT less about your subject than you do! I have been guilty in the past of assuming my audience understood more than they actually did - which led to my presentation going over their heads on occasions So..... keep it simple and, if in doubt, opt for the easier explanation.

Just because they are photographers doesn't mean the know all about photography - and just because they are divers doesn't mean they know anything about underwater photography!!!!!!

Good luck with your presentation; having admired your work through this forum I'm sure the images will hold your audience spellbound.

Judging your audience beforehand is the difficult part.

At the recents LIDS Digital Clinic, on the first day we had roughly 50/50 compact jpeg shooter and DSLR shooters. The next day all but one in the audience was a compact jpeg shooter. We even had one man who said that he kept buying more cassettes (memory cards?) and filled them with pictures but didn't know how to get them into his computer! I have a feeling Paul Kay's informative presentation on RAW might have gone over his head!

Judging your audience beforehand is the difficult part.

 

At the recents LIDS Digital Clinic, on the first day we had roughly 50/50 compact jpeg shooter and DSLR shooters. The next day all but one in the audience was a compact jpeg shooter. We even had one man who said that he kept buying more cassettes (memory cards?) and filled them with pictures but didn't know how to get them into his computer! I have a feeling Paul Kay's informative presentation on RAW might have gone over his head!

I imagined he was using an old audio tape recorder with his camera, just like to old days on my ZX spectrum, loading games…. John you have broken my mental picture of that guy fumbling with 90min tape underwater…..

When I give presentations I usually ask what value I am providing. I look at this by asking myself:

What is my differentiator?

What is unique about what I do?

What do you want the takeaways to be?

Are you selling your services or providing information?

Build your show around "why" you are presenting.

Why & how is what you do different from other industries who shoot model sessions?

It's always a learning experience. This first time presenting will allow you to refine your next seminar based on feedback from your audience.

Joe