Virtual Backgrounds Workshop with Trevon Baker Sept. 12-14th, 2011

I just came back from a trip to San Marcos, Texas, visiting Virtual Backgrounds headquarters and sitting in on a workshop trained by Trevon Baker. It's been awhile since I sat in a classroom setting. I found myself both enger to learn about the scene machine systems that Virtual Backgrounds make, and also enjoying the workshop sessions that went over the topics of lighting and posing.

Virtual Backgrounds has been around the photography industry for a long time, however I only heard about it during my trip to WPPI back in 2007. My first impression of the system was how dated I thought the system looked, and the type of imagery that was coming out of it. All of it seemed to be filmed based, which isn't bad. But I had a hard time seeing how it would work in the new digital workflow that many photographers were in.

Fast forward to this past week, my latest impression of this system has changed. VB had designed some new systems that were easier to use, and the evolution of digital has complimented the look and feel of the pictures coming out of the system.

Trevon Baker was also an excellent teacher, I forgotten how energetic I can get seeing a portrait session come alive with proper lighting and posing being done that's in the cookie cutter way that I train at my normal 9-5 job. Hearing about lighting ratios, seeing proper butterfly lighting, and getting involved with helping out other photographers at the workshop were all memories I was able to take out of this workshop. Katie, our fresh out of high school model, was such a great subject to photograph, everyone enjoyed how wonderful her posing was. She didn't offer any challenges when getting into the posing, and she couldn't help but smile throughout the entire 3 days.

The funny thing about the last 2 days there, I totally forgot about the VB system, which my boss ended up purchasing one for the business. He asked me to do some further testing of the system, which I will definitely take advantage of it.

http://www.virtualbackgrounds.net/

http://www.trevonbaker.com/home.html