David and Joe's Flash Bus Tour 2011

Now this is timely! David Hobby (a.k.a. Mr. Strobist) and Joe McNally (a.k.a. Grandmaster Flash) have just announced a triumphal 29-city teaching tour called the Flash Bus Tour 2011. David and Joe will travel by bus around the country and conduct a series of inexpensive ($99) one-day small-flash seminars for photographers all over the U.S., in both flavors—David will teach manual in the mornings and Joe will teach TTL in the afternoons (both shoot Nikon, but the seminars are brand-agnostic).

The Tour is getting underway soon—registration opens at 9 a.m. EST on Monday, January 31st, just four days from now. The Tour kicks off in Seattle, Washington, on March 11th and ends in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 18th, with 27 other stops in between.

I don't know either of these guys personally, but I'm intimately acquainted with their reputations, and both are widely considered to be excellent, energetic, and entertaining teachers. Given the wide reach of Strobist.com, I suspect this will sell out quicker than a Rolling Stones tour. See the dedicated Flash Bus Tour website for all the details, and, if you're interested, act sharp on Monday morning.

Mike
(Thanks to hlinton)

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[amcananey]

Just looking at the schedule made me tired for them...

Also, any holdup (bad weather, mechanical problems, illness) and that schedule will fall like a rack of Dominoes. Good luck, guys!

Best,
Adam

[Roger Bradbury]

sounds great, but I don't see Milton Keynes on the schedule. What are they thinking? : )

It sounds like there will be a video, so I'll just have to wait for that.

Another photographer who used a bus is Daniel Meadows, who went around England in the 70s taking posed photos of ordinary people in their everyday clothes, then went back 25 years later to try and find them:
http://www.photobus.co.uk/
There's a book. "The Bus" It's on Amazon.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Unfortunately, they appear to be going across down south; so they're somehow missing Minneapolis, though they're going to a lot of smaller metros.

[Bob Blakley]

I've been on a bus tour with Joe McNally as an instructor. He's a great teacher and a really funny guy - $99 is a bargain for a day with these guys. Highly recommended.

[James]

Hopefully it's a rehearsal for the Europe 2012 tour.

I'm not a tribalist for any one brand - I happened to buy a Nikon SLR in 1995 and have stuck with the brand since for continuity of lenses - but I do think Canon/Pentax/Sony etc shooters are going to want a "morning only" discount.

[Derek]

@DD-B:

Looking at the schedule, I see Minneapolis on 4/16. Now I just need to decide if I want to be there myself....

[David Bennett]

Who took the photo of the two of them that appears in the header of your article. I think it has been photoshopped. ;-)

[Paul Van]

Given the population density of Canada, plus the geographical distances, I doubt they'll do this in Canada - but I'd go if they did!!

[Marty]

Gonna get me a Bahston ticket.
always wanted to learn a trick or two from McNally.

[Mike]

This sounds like so much fun.

[pepeye]

Albuquerque's on the list. Excellent!

[Clive]

Another photographer who used a bus is Daniel Meadows, who went around England in the 70s taking posed photos of ordinary people in their everyday clothes, then went back 25 years later to try and find them:
http://www.photobus.co.uk/
There's a book. "The Bus" It's on Amazon

Roger, thanks for this, I remember vaguely hearing about it at the time.

Daniel Meadows website is really interesting, I've ordered the book too.......

Thanks again
Clive

p.s. Not sure if there is anyone left on the planet who isn't aware of the Hobby/McNally small falsh ethos, its certianly given the gear manufacturers a boost.....

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Yeah, don't know how I misread it. I must have thought I knew more than I did about their geographical sweep, and stopped looking when they got solidly west of us, I guess; missing that they looped back. (I initially thought I'd searched for "minneapolis" as text and not found it, but that can't be true, since I just did that and found it.)

I've written to ask how big the classes are. We shall see.

[kirk tuck]

I can hardly wait. It's always fun to see how other photographers do entertainment.

[Kurt Shoens]

I attended a similar seminar that McNally taught in 2009. It was about 700 people and I would say it was more inspirational than educational. It is fun to watch someone skilled improvise their way through several lighting situations, but I think it would be hard to pick up lighting from scratch in a one day event like this.

If you want more in-depth education from these guys, they both have hours of video available, McNally has a couple of books and another on the way, plus of course extensive info on their web sites. You can very easily see lots of what they have to offer.

I wouldn't worry about a Nikon-centric orientation. If you watch someone make Nikon TTL sing and dance, it's pretty easy to apply the knowledge to other systems.

I'm in awe of how well these two fellows have marketed themselves in photography education. There are many talented photographers and teachers but I don't know how many could successfully run a campaign like this. However, there is a wealth of high quality information (books, videos, workshops, websites) from other folks. Unfortunately, attention is scarce, so many worthy people are not so well known.

For me personally, I would get more out of a day photographing, trying new things, taking risks, venturing out of my comfort zone, and learning from mistakes.