Whew! What a week it was last week… Last Wednesday, I brought pal and photog instructor guru Zack Arias into my studio for another episiode of chasejarvisLIVE. We chatted photography for 2 hours and took questions from the live Twitter audience via #cjlive. Was a blast. While about 20,000 of you caught the interview LIVE–it seemed like I got at least that many tweets/emails/fbook requests to post it again here on the blog, so… As you wish. Here ’tis.
From there, we shipped Zack and his crew into our creativeLIVE studio where he put on one heckuva studio lighting course all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully you saw the interwebs booming, especially with the @creativeLIVE and #askzack tags. I’m pretty sure Zack swiped some ratings from the World Cup. Or at least we had fun trying. I wanted to give a huge shoutout to Zack and his team for an amazing effort. You guys and gals nailed it. Also a shoutout also to all the manufacturers that kicked in gear for Zack to give away, as well as uber thanks to B&H Photo Video for their support of the creativeLIVE studio and G-Technology for keeping our gobs and gobs of data safe. They support us, please support them. I hope lots of you tuned in. And if you didn’t but wished you had, the course is available for download here.
While I’ve got you, I wanted to ask for your feedback. Not somebody else’s…YOURS. In the comments below, we’re looking to find out a few things with the goal of making creativeLIVE the best it can be. Tell us whatever you want, but please help us by answering some or all of the following particulars about our LIVE, free, worldwide creative education platform:
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
2. Where do you live? We want to understand the breadth of our audience with the comments on this post. Where are you from, and when are you watching the LIVE feed?
3. Does this live worldwide format really work? This is the important part. What does the experience feel like to you? Can you help describe this format to someone who’s never seen it?
Thanks for taking the time! If you’re new here, I invite you to subscribe/follow via links above and to the right. Lots more stuff heading your way soon on all our channels…
Followed both the Vincent Laforet and Zack Arias classes and loved pretty much every minute of it! Bought both classes on day one 😉
1. I’ve never attended photography classes before, so I really have nothing to compare with. I can, however, say that I have learned a TON of stuff, so the fact alone that the classes are free makes them different from the rest. I’ve only “attended” the three-day classes, so I don’t know about the one-day class format. With Zack, I felt that day 1 was a bit too information heavy, but I totally get that it all had to be said in order to get everybody on board 🙂
2. I live in Denmark. The classes begin at 6 or 7 pm local time, which would be fine if the classes were divided into four hour days 😉 I could watch the reruns, I guess, but then I’d miss out on the entire interactivity (twitter) thing, plus I’d miss day three entirely (having to go to work on monday). I’ve purchased both classes at $79, so I could also just watch those, but again I like the live thing…
3. It totally works! I guess the “language” of photography is pretty much the same all over the world (much as the language of programming which I “also” know). To me both the classes I’ve attended felt like being a part of any old photography class (which I’ve never actually tried), only difference being that you have to rely on other people to ask the right questions. The twitterverse is too diffuse for one to be able to count on “getting through” to the instructor. But it’s free, dangit, so I have no reason to complain. At. All. If I were to explain this concept (as I’ve done in Danish more than once ;-), I’d say it’s about (normally “unattainable”) world class instructors sharing their knowledge worldwide – live and for free. If someone doesn’t get that, or isn’t hooked by the concept, they’re not into photography enough 😀 I know that this is my only chance to ever (!) attend a Vincent Laforet, Zack Arias or David duChemin class, and it isn’t hard to appreciate being handed that chance for free!
Seriously, this concept is absolutely awesome and perfect for those of us unable to go to the US just for photography classes. To heck with the time zone issues, that can’t really be changed. As long as the streaming technology holds up (with it TOTALLY did with Zack Arias, not so much with Vincent Laforet), I see no reason to change a thing. Oh yeah. One little one: Craig could easily get much of his checklist done BEFORE the end of the scheduled break. Seems silly to say “we’re going to have a ten minute break” only to spend fifteen minutes breaking (hrmph) and spend another five doing checklist. And in general I’d love for the time schedule to be honored a bit more strictly (I probably didn’t phrase that correctly ;-), since there are a few thousand “invisible” people waiting every time.
I know this is all just appraisal and that it might seem completely uncritical, but I have essentially no critique. A thousand thumbs up, ten million “keep up the good work” and a billion thanks!
1. It’s FREE yo! Can’t beat that. Plus you put some super inspirational people are here, for FREE. I have been against the institutional format of teaching photography for a many reasons. But I like this format.
2.From the 505 bro! Albuquerque, NM
3. It works for me, because it’s FREE. I think some people are not fully understanding this. If I miss one, I miss one. It sucks, but beggars can’t be choosers. If I really want it, I’ll buy it to help support this awesome thing. You guys are offering your time for us. I’ll take what I can get.
Thank you, by the way.
The only thing I suggest is more variety. Do a show on old school medium formats shooting film. Cole Barash. Who’s killing it right now in the industry? Bring them on. I really like the creative process. So, who’s doing the most creative photography? Who’s doing some killer wedding stuff (DANIEL MILNOR)? Who’s killing portraits? Fashion? Sports? (not Scott Kelby )
I know someone mentioned wanting to see a business class. I don’t agree with this. I would have about 3 months ago. But I figured some things out. Everyone’s business is going to be different. Pick a book up from the library to learn business. There’s tons. This is about creativity. Anyone can have a good idea, it’s the execution that will make it shine. Let’s see how people execute.
I actually like the Chase Jarvis live interviews with Arias & RA Scion the best. That was awesome!! It would be cool to see more of those with magazine photo editors, creative directors and maybe even clients, like REI.
“If you are what you say you are, a super star, then have no fear. The camera’s here.”
I tuned in, realized that that this was going to be awesome, and that I couldn’t watch the whole tome, and bought the downloads. I think that is going to be really neat. I still tuned in quite a bit, when I could, but will be able to rewatch and watch what I missed.
I love that you can get to see the actual program before putting up the money. And yet, those that can’t come up with the change can still get in. (Are there really enough people coughing up the dough?)
The format of the zack show was really great. I loved how there were people in the audience, how zack took questions from them and twitter and such. It was very relaxed, and yet still seemed to stay on track and focused. Good balance.
I am in Minneapolis, and loved having the replay. It gave me two chances to watch. I bet this was great for other timezones too.
First of all, big thanks to all of you guys who made it happen. This was totally amazing experience!
1) I can’t even describe how helpful you guys are. I come from Poland, East Europe and wanted to join that kind of class a long time ago (especially Zack’s class) but unfortunately there’s almost no such thing in my country. Any photography courses costs a lot and it’s hard to choose anything if you don’t see the effects of class that already participated in it. ‘Cause, you see, you, Americans has such amazing… thing, that you share everything you have with the world. I mean, if not you, I would never start my photography journey. All that flickr, facebook, twitter things, the blogs of photogs who exactly, point by point, show how they do that and that… It’s speechless.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t say my country is out of good photographers ;P Actually we got some really amazing talents here. But it’s really tough to get started for a newbie.
So, the whole creativeLIVE idea is REMARKABLE!
2) The hours were really fine. Most of the time the course started at 8pm (so I was after work/domestic duties/etc) and it ended at 2pm. When I couldn’t finish it in the main day, I just woke up the next day at 9am and was in the same point I stoped yesterday.
3) As many others says, you could really feel like actually sitting in the room with Zack and others. And there was no connection problems (which I can’t say about Vincent’s Laforet class ;( ), no sound problems, everything was just great! And about the Zack, oh man, he’s amaaaaaazing instructor, so chilled and so professional at the same time. Really, fantastic work!!!
Looking forward for future creativeLIVE classes!
Regards
Paul
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
I love it! The only thing lacking is a physical presence there, which..well…is no big deal to me. You get to interact with the instructor, and I had a couple of questions answered directly, and with such a large audience with photography being the common denominator, I had some that I wanted to ask that were asked by someone else. Every question I had got answered.
I know some people were complaining about minute details (oh..oh…that mic is a little too loud..), but man, it’s LIVE…stuff happens when you have that much going on. It sort of added a feel or realism for me.
One reason I would say it’s better is because I have been in workshops where I was definitely the low man on the totem pole. It made it intimidating to ask a question because I felt like “Everyone else already knows this and I don’t want to sound like an idiot”. With this it didn’t really matter. If my question was dumb…no one knows who I am…I’m just one of a few thousand people.
On a side note, the addition of the chat allowed me to make several new contacts via Twitter and Facebook. I think networking with your peers is crucial to photography, and I met some fine people who love the craft like I do.
2. Where do you live? We want to understand the breadth of our audience with the comments on this post. Where are you from, and when are you watching the LIVE feed? I’m in Gadsden, Alabama (yes…there are redneck photographers too…lol) We are on Central time so I am two hours ahead of you guys in Seattle.
3. Does this live worldwide format really work? This is the important part. What does the experience feel like to you? Can you help describe this format to someone who’s never seen it?
Yes it works! It’s brilliant actually! Quite frankly, I’m not rich. I’m far from rich. Zack lives two hours away from me, but even without travel expenses I simply can’t afford to attend his workshop. Having seen his OneLight DVD and other teaching endeavors I think the prices are very fair for the return, but still out of reach for some of us. This brought it right to my front door for FREE! Watching a DVD isn’t all that personal….but the way Zack interacted with the internet audience was awesome and it gave a much more personal feel to all of this.
I just want to add a big THANK YOU for the whole team that has made this possible. It’s great to see a group of people that believe in what they are doing and it’s obvious that you guys believe in this. You’re putting knowledge into the hands of people who maybe otherwise couldn’t afford it.