Hi folks! Oh look, it's me… the guy who no one's heard from in a while. Yeah, sorry about that.

Things have been insanely busy (which is good… very good) but it means I've been neglecting the site quite a bit. Naughty, I know.

I wanted to share some updates, tell you what else I've been working on, and talk about the future a bit.

Photos for OS X Basic Training

Many of you made the early purchase on my Photos for OS X Basic Training, thank you very much. I did a pre-sale before the first video was released with a huge discount, and have been selling it throughout development at healthy discount, with the plan to go full price once the video is done. I expected that to take about a month or so, but it's coming up on three months since I started it, with a huge gap since the last release.

The good news is, over the last several days I sat down and recorded every last video. Yay! Now I just need to edit and release, and that's not that big of a task really… so the rest of the videos will be coming shortly. (Which also means the discount will go away… hint hint to anyone who hasn't bought yet). Thank you for your patience; only a few of you have (rightfully) sent me “WTF” emails… my apologies for the delay. A huge part of that delay is because I had back to back projects for a company you've seen here before…

DxO Labs

DxO Labs hired me to create “getting started” videos for DxO OpticsPro 10 and DxO FilmPack. I've embedded them here, or you can see them on the DxO tutorials page. I keep meaning to write some posts on these, as they are both very cool apps.

I now use DxO Optics Pro for all my really hard RAW decodes (often an image you wish you'd shot HDR can be made amazing with it, and super noisy images come out incredibly beautiful through it's super noise reduction), sending straight from Lightroom.

Adobe Lightroom for Aperture users

The next big training series on the docket is “Lightroom for Aperture users”, and I'm super excited to get started on that one. But as you'll see in a moment, it'll be at least another month before I can begin, as I'm about to go out of town. This one will be in a Live Training format, but that's all going to be changing a bit, too. It'll be available like it always has been (free to watch live, paid to download later), but I'm working on expanding this model a bit, into something a lot of people have asked for over the years, and that's…

Site membership

The particulars are still being determined (partially based on technical possibilities and/or restrictions) but the intention is to offer a paid membership for the site that will gain you access to free and discounted content. For regular users of the site it'll be a cost savings; for occasional users of the site it'll be better to stay on a buy-as-you-go program. Part of the delay on this is simply me figuring out what to offer to make sure that the membership is worthwhile, and how to allocate enough time to do so. It's coming together. But of course part of making membership valid is having more content. Don't worry, the main tips will still be free, but I'm thinking that I'll add things such as video version of tips as “behind the pay wall”, as it were. Which means, I need…

More contributors

Obviously a good way to attract good authors is to be able to pay them. I have a program in place but I want to pay more than what I am able to currently for articles, which will in turn hopefully garner at least a few more regular contributors who can rely on posting here as a bit of a part-time/side job. I've said it before and I'll say it again; if you're a great writer with some cool ideas for tips on photo editing (and these days you can pick any app you want to write about!), let me know. The money isn't great today, but with the introduction of paid membership and some pretty clever ideas on profit sharing, I'm confident it'll improve to a more attractive level. It's a format we're working the technical details out on based on the quality of what you write (i.e. readership of your articles) and not the quantity. I think those who participate will enjoy it.

But all that means more and more work on the admin side! Which is why I'm also looking for…

Site admin assistance

I'm actively looking to hire someone to take on some of the admin responsibilities of the site. I hate that I've neglected the site for so long (not for the first time), and don't want that to happen anymore. With a better revenue model I'll be able to afford to have someone helping out, and that will be a huge boon to us all. This is also great as it frees me up to concentrate on things like the Lightroom course, and doing more video tips. I've spent a LOT of time figuring out the best way to take video to the next level, and I think I've got it. I needed to finish the Photos training before I could reconfigure for that new setup, so that's finally done. But before I can get going on that, I'm going on…

Vacation!

I'll be in Tokyo for a week, arriving around the time this posts publishes, from Thursday to Thursday. Watch for fun photos on the socials on my @PhotoJoseph accounts! I'll be shooting mostly with the new LUMIX G7, so I'll have some fresh content for the…

LUMIX Shoot Anything Tour

As soon as I return from Tokyo, I head out for another #LumixShootAnything tour. On the previous one, my comrade in arms Giulio Sciorio and I drove from Los Angeles, CA to Seattle, WA (and back!) talking about the exciting developments in the world of LUMIX cameras and the Micro Four Thirds technology. Next we're taking the tour through the South/South East (I've seen this referred to as the SXSE tour… not sure that'll stick!), this time doing more flying than driving, talking the talk and shooting along the way. We would love to do some grass roots events as we go; we'll start a big social media push soon. Be sure to reach out if we're coming to a city near you.

For up-to-date info on that tour, check out LumixShootAnything.com, and be sure to follow me and Giulio on the twitters. Here's the tour schedule:

• Precision Camera — Austin on Tuesday July 21
• Arlington Camera — Dallas/Ft Worth on Wednesday July 22
• Roberts Camera — Indianapolis on Friday July 24
• Dury’s — Nashville on Saturday July 25
• Showcase Photo & Video — Atlanta, GA on Monday July 27

Things will be roughly back to “normal” in August. hahahah yeah that's funny.

But being back in the studio in August means I can reconfigure my broadcast setup as mentioned above, get the Lightroom training started, and also finally (finally!!!) start working on…

TWiP Apps podcast

You've possibly heard it mentioned before; I will be doing an Apps podcast to go along with this site and the This Week in Photo network. Part of the video retrofit mentioned above is for that, and part of it is to be able to deliver videos to you with minimal friction — the easier it is, the more often I can do it. Frederick and I have been talking about it for a long time… it's nearly time to do this thing.

And that brings us to the fall. The only other thing I want to mention isn't actually happening until next year, but we're going to be talking about this a lot over the next few months. That'd be my…

Oaxaca Mexico Photography Workshop

From January 19 to 27, 2016 I'll be leading the photography part of a photography/cultural tour through Oaxaca, Mexico. This is going to be an amazing trip; the other chap I'm doing this with, Eric Mindling, has been doing cultural tours for many many years, and we're now expanding this into a photography workshop as well. It'll be incredible!

Las Penyitas Church outside of Oaxaca City (where “Nacho Libre” was filmed… in a very different light) — photo © Eric Mindling

You can get more info about it and sign up for the mailing list at PhotoJoseph.com/workshops. We aren't taking sign-ups for the tour itself yet as we still have some logistics to finalize, but if you're interested, you'll want to get on the list, for sure. 

What else?

I think that's it… I hope that's it! So yeah… this site hasn't been forgotten, and it may still be slow for a little longer, but we're getting there. Really!

Thanks,
-Joseph