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Take your pictures to the next level at the Maui Photo Festival & Workshops

By Staff | Sep 10, 2009

Learn to make a movie poster with Adobe Systems’ Dr. Russell Preston Brown.

KAANAPALI — Ever wish you could chuck your boring job and become a travel photographer?

Consider the life of Andy Katz, who travels the world to capture just right images for corporate clients. When he is finished with his current assignment in South Korea — 12 images for a hotel calendar — he will travel directly to the Maui Photo Festival & Workshops at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa, where he will teach, along with 20 other top professional photographers, from Sept. 16-20. 

He will be a featured speaker at the event’s evening outdoor Paradise Cinema slide show presentation and teach a hands-on class for high school-age photographers.

Then Katz will return to his home in California’s wine country — until he is off on another assignment. For a creative soul with wanderlust in his heart, it is the stuff dreams are made of.

Great photographers can find their subjects anywhere. What takes them to the next level is training and developing a unique style. Consider the work of Randy Jay Braun, an inspirational role model for a career in fine art photography.

Braun opened his first art gallery on Maui in 1989, featuring his own hand-colored photographs of hula dancers. He now has a successful fine art photography business, a thriving gallery in Makawao and an international fan club.

Braun, a member of the advisory board of the Maui Photo Festival, will team up with Adobe Systems’ Dr. Russell Preston Brown in a pre-conference called “The Pirate Project.” This hands-on workshop is based on the “assignment” to create a movie poster. After a morning of capturing images, everyone returns to the classroom at the Hyatt to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop to use those images in the finished poster. It will be an intensive training… but what fun!

Maui Photo Festival organizers promise that photographers of all levels can explore options for a career move, improve their photography technique and come away creatively inspired. Teachers include Rick Sammon (author of 35 photography books), Clark Little (surf photographer), David Rose and Lou Freeman (celebrity portraits), Stacy Pearsall (award-winning military photographer),Tony Novak-Clifford (food), David Fleetham (underwater images) and Eli Reed (photojournalism). In short, no photography niche will be left unexplored.

The class “Photographing People & Kids” with child photography expert Jack Reznicki is one of the reasons Lahaina resident Veronica Pietsch is attending the Maui Photo Festival.

“I love taking photographs — especially of my grandson. But I’m thinking maybe this could be what it takes to take me from a hobby to a career someday.”

To register, visit Expedia Local Expert concierge desks around the island or go to www.MauiPhotoFestival.com.