Of Strobes Showcases and Software

After wandering the halls in search of cleaver new photographic gear, I've come to a startling conclusion—the majority of the trade show is comprised of those companies that produce lighting equipment, photographic books and programs.

The first is probably the most obvious because lighting companies by necessity have large booths (an octagonal soft-box really is quite huge) and they're really very bright (in a "pop, pop, pop" sort of way). Book producers meanwhile seem to take spaces disproportionate to their product's size.

Here's an example. This show I'm working at my organization, the Aperture Users Professional Network (apertureprofessional.com) where we're using a 20 x 40 booth for a 12-seat theater and a three-station training lab. Directly across the aisle is an Italian company called Wedding Book that's occupying a 20 x 50 space, mostly empty, showing off their handful of custom books.

And this is the case everywhere you turn. Custom photo books are the anchor of the show, and for good reason—most wedding shooters make their money off of the albums rather than off of the actual day rate. The quality of the book selection is vastly better than even a few years ago, with photographers now able to produce hardcover photographic coffee table books in single-off production runs where previously they'd have had to pre-buy an entire production run and self-publish.

There are also niche output markets here, including the company WaxWorks, which produces custom artwork from printed photography that is mounted on a wood panel with archival glue and then coated with beeswax. The results evoke oil paintings, and while they're definitely too gauche for most subjects there's definitely a market for their products. (And, according to the post card next to me there's also a 20 percent discount for first time customers using the code PDN on their site www.waxworksphoto.com.)

Also notable at the show is the vast amount of paper products now on the market for photographers. From Moab to Epson's new fiber paper, there's new output media everywhere you look. This echoes my long-standing mantra "stick with the manufacturer's ink, but experiment like crazy with paper."

Photography has clearly finished the transition to becoming a retronym—a word that used to have one meaning but has that meaning replaced by another use—as the term no longer refers in the mainstream to film-based shooting. In fact, just about the only film visible at the show is on display at the Fujifilm booth, a display case full of Velvia and Provia sit nearby the company's excellent photo output systems.

Instead the hall is full of software, from my personally beloved Aperture to Lightroom to small companies turning out products like Pixel Creator an oddly named program considering the tag line is "album design in Photoshop made easy."

Many of the more stalwart offerings have been recently updated as well. OnOne Software (onone.com), one of the most notable of the Photoshop plug-in developers has recently updated or released new packages for Genuine Fractals, PhotoTools, PhotoTune, PhotoFrame and FocalPoint. Many of these are some of the most relied-upon programs in imaging, and their upgrades are a big bonus for Photoshop users.

And that's the show folks. Digital is continuing its meteoric ascent, the market is maturing and the photographers who spent the last few years trying to come to grips with a digital workflow are really starting to get in the groove.

It's a great time to have a trade show.