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I attended Canon’s seminar on news and sports photography last Saturday, 7 August 2010 at SM North EDSA. I found out about only it a couple of days before the event (which was already the second one), when some of my photography contacts in Facebook got tagged in a post announcing the seminar and soliciting news- and sports-themed photos for their live critique session.
The seminar was pretty good. While waiting for the speaker to arrive, there was free A4-size printing of any pic using Canon’s PIXMA printer if you brought a USB drive or CF/SD cards, and Canon’s super telephoto lenses were available for people to touch and shoot with (a la Canon booth at the last DPP party). Photojournalists were also in attendance, including Ernie Sarmiento, Chief Photographer for the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The speaker was Dennis M. Sabangan, a veteran photojournalist who’s now a Chief Photographer of the european pressphoto agency. He talked about his experiences covering news, sports and wars, and shared tips and techniques he uses in photojournalism. He also presented some of his shots and explained how the shot was taken. He taught us how international newspeople get to crisis sites in other countries quickly, what happens on the ground, and answered all our questions. Mr. Sabangan delivered his talk mostly in Filipino, which was pretty cool.
And then… he proceeded to do a live critique of pictures that were submitted (mine included). Mr. Sabangan went through a lot of pics, so much so that Canon got a function room at The Old Spaghetti House restaurant so that we could continue the live judging over a free dinner of pasta and beef. Yum.
The live judging was pretty funny. Mr. Sabangan certainly has a sense of humor and can deliver zingers (made even funnier because Filipino was used). Do not submit pics for critique to him unless you can handle criticism. He does not mince words, and some egos will be deflated.
That is not to say that it was an unnecessarily-cruel-crash-and-burn live judging session. Mr. Sabangan actually explained why a picture was good or bad in the context of news/sports editorial content. I submitted a couple of photos which I though were pretty good (and other photographers seemed to think so as well), and he pointed out things (timing and framing) that I can improve so that my pics can be more suitable for a news publication.
Mr. Sabangan picked out the top 3 pics (which were very good technically and aesthetically, some must’ve been shot by pros using supertelephotos), and the prizes were limited edition Canon Lens mugs. There was a no-show, no prize policy, and only one winner was present, so two mugs were then raffled off… and went to a man-woman couple who attended the seminar! Lucky guys!
I went home with a new way of looking at my pics, a canvas Canon Pixma bag with lens and printer brochures and a Canon Philippines catalog with prices in pesos (super telephoto for P670K anyone?), two A4 prints of my photos, and a full stomach.
During the seminar I had asked an organizer where they advertised the event. She told me that they posted this in Facebook. Okay… Facebook event announcements are only visible to fans of a company’s FB page. Thus, one has to “Like” a company’s FB page first before one can see event announcements. I’ve told the organizers (which aren’t part of the usual Marketing group that does the Canon events) that they should be publicizing these things in News and Announcement sections of the local photography forums such as Digital Photographer Philippines and PinoyPhotography with permission from the moderators. Hopefully more people show up if Canon decides to hold another one.
All-in-all, it was a great seminar for photography pros, enthusiast and students of journalism and I learned a lot. If there’s a third installment, I’ll be there.
Thanks Canon Marketing Philippines! I’d also like to give thanks to Antonni Cuesta for answering my questions about this seminar before I showed up.
Note: This article is derived for the most part from my original post in the Digital Photographer Philippines forum, and edited for a wider audience.
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