Chris Orwig’s Lightroom 2 Training

I have been watching the Lynda.com video course called “Photoshop Lightroom 2 Essential training with Chris Orwig“. Chris is a good teacher and he loves photography in general and Lightroom in particular. Unfortunately he glosses over some issues that I’d like to know more about – like keywording.He seems to be of the “just add a few keywords and you’ll be able to find your images later” school.

He is almost completely non-critical of Adobe and some of his material sounds like Adobe’s product marketing department produced it. I’d like something more balanced and the teacher not to be afraid to criticize where criticism is due. The cynic in me thinks that Chris gets business from Adobe so he does not want to upset them. However, if I was an Adobe product manager I’d welcome candid comments and would not want independent trainers to stay on message all the time.

At the end of each set of lessons Chris includes a bonus lesson about photography. The one at the end of Module 7 Working with Metadata amused me greatly. It’s “Creative tip 3 Taking wide-angle shots“. In the video Chris is standing on the end of a dock in a marina in Santa Barbara, California. He’s describing how it is better to get down low and have a subject in the foreground when using a wide angle lens.

He kneels at the end of the dock and shoots “a really great image”. He’s so enthused about his great image that he holds his camera in one hand and waves his arms around. If a powerboat went past and rocked the dock his expensive Canon DSLR and L Series wide angle lens would end up in the drink.

Here’s a screen grab from the movie.

Don't Drop It!

I was waiting for him to drop the camera and I didn’t hear what he was saying.

I think these fillers were made on the cheap. He could have shown the picture he took standing up with nothing in the foreground and then compared it with the second image where he knelt down. He claims he captured a ‘really great image’ but he didn’t share it and its uninspired predecessor with me.

I am working my way through the series and Chris has taught me a lot. I am waiting to get to the ones on the develop module. I am very weak there and I have a lot to learn.