PhotoPress Production a Worskhop FRAUD

I realized that two months quickly have passed since I wrote anything here on the blog. Lots of crazy things been happening and along with work time would not let me have a couple of moments to spare with the blog.

Besides having to update Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and now Google+ there is also the blog running. Not saying that the blog will turn into some old stuff but I believe more and more that times are changing and blogging will turn to be a thing from the past, sooner than we think. Also great things are buried under the hood on the LightingMods blog that people sometimes do not have time to dig them up.

I'm talking about the great articles I have written about off camera lighting and gizmos that some of you never read or ear about them. Things evolve so do people.

Enough talk already about this, let's cut to the chase ;)

I decided after a long period of waiting, along with the agreement of photographer David Tejada, to bring this case public has I feel this matter is something we all need to take in account and pay attention when going or looking for a photography Workshop. This is a real story and it happen to me along with a couple of people around some cities in Europe... but let's start from the beginning.


Well it all started at the end of last year 2010 when fellow photographer David Tejada announced a couple of Workshops around Europe where Lisbon was scheduled.

Called Small Strobes Big Results workshops and if you know what I'm talking about you also know that is something you will not want to miss when it passes by your door step. Reputation precedes David Tejada on this matter along with names as David Hobby from Strobist and Joe McNally just to name the most important ones on the matter of Small Strobe lighting.

As soon has the registration opened I logged on to their account at www.photopress-production.com (no longer working) and made a pre-registration for the event.

Made the pre-registration on 10th October 2010 and received an email on the same day with the confirmation

Things were looking good has I had no problems with paying things with PayPal has done before for the David Hobby Strobist workshops in London. On 13th January 2011 I sent an email to the PhotoPress Production team asking if everything was going has I had no more contacts since 2 months.

Got a reply a couple days later.

PayPal payment was issued for the Workshop.

I also add PhotoPress Production to my Skype account in order to verify if they were serious about this going on in Portugal or if it would be any kind of flop. They reply to me saying they have received the transfer.

Then when everything seems to be rolling out I received an email from Daniel Lugosi, a couple of days before the workshop, saying that the workshop has been postponed.

Well I asked for the refund as promised during the next 30 days and got a reply back.

Not the answer I was expecting from a professional workshop organizer but as I know by experience everything has a timing and I thought that was the problem. So I waited a couple days more and asked again...

Well I decided to wait a couple more days for the refund but things were not meant to be. And got another excuse email.

And another one now with a "real" excuse to the problem and saying that there were some other people involved in the story.

And by the end of May got another excuse.

By the end of May and after getting this email I decided to contact David Tejada directly to see if he knew about this situation and got a very interesting email from him.

Then Daniel reply us back with more waiting time for the refund that was supposed to 30 days after the cancellation of the workshop and so far nothing except waiting time...

Tried to get some more info over skype but no mic and more excuses.

That's when I tried over Skype to talk him to refund me but the answer kept the same all over again.

And again.

As up till today no refund was issued. I also noticed that this company keep giving Workshops in Hungary with some students.

David Tejada also published some replies at his blog concerning this situation and will be issuing, soon, a blog post about this all embarrassing situation.

Photographer Ugo Cei is another of the subscribed photographers that, until today, did not received any refund for the money he has paid for this Workshop. He also blogged about it here in an attempt to stop this situation to grow and affect some more people.

There is also a Discussion on Strobist.com Flickr about this all situation where names like David Hobby from Strobist condemned this kind of actions "Oh, criminy.
This sucks. I have written to Mr. Lugosi, trying to get to the bottom of this. This is way not cool, really needs to get fixed ASAP. ".

Some more information about these people:

Daniel Lugosi

Daniel Lugosi his facebook page

Also his account at Linkedin page

Contacts:
PhotoPress Production
info@photopress-production.com
info@photopress.hu
press@photopress.hu
+36 36205433320

Take a look at all the workshops he and his company been making without having the decency of refunding people first. And some of these Workshops were made after the cancellation of David Tejada workshop.

They also got another page over Hungary server called PhotoPress Hungary.

And another place more for their acclaimed workshops.

Budapeste PhotoWorkshop facebook page

Here are some photos of their workshops and workspace.

If you call it a FRAUD or not I leave that thoughts up to you. My intention here was to warn you about these guys and also warn potential instructors that could have their career's affected by these kind of people.
They promised me the refund for 6 months now and so far nothing. I do believe it will never come and that this kind of photography FRAUD must be stopped for the sake of all us photographers.

I will let my thoughts about this sided has much could be said against Daniel Lugosi and his companies for not fulfilling their refund policies nor having any concerns with their students. Where did the money went, maybe for the new office or a camera or a lens or to some other place that should not been.

If you are one of the affected by this matter please leave a comment here and also contact Daniel Lugosi directly has I have posted here all his contact information. And if by any chance you go into one of these workshops pay attention to the refund policies.

Warned and out!!

--- 2011-07-27 Update ---

- I received a contact by another Portuguese photographer in the same situation Luciano Reis and also had another email from photographer Ugo Cei that is still waiting for the refund.

- Daniel Lugosi sent me an email with a confirmation of the money transfer to my account, let's see what will happen in the next couple of days.

---//---

--- 2011-07-28 Update ---

- Photographer David Tejada posted some more information concerning this matter in his blog, just check it out here.

- I also decided to hide the faces of the photographers that are visible on the photos I posted as a matter of courtesy to them as this has nothing to do with them personally.

---//---

--- 2011-07-29 Update ---

- Finally and after almost 6 months waiting I received only the refund.

Thank you all for the great help and hope you will get yours too. Will leave this page as a warning to all people making business with these guys.

---//---

--- 2011-07-30 Update ---

- David Tejada got some more information concerning this case. I think you should check it out as I think it's an AWESOME offer from he's part and in respect to all those of you who are still waiting for the refund from Photo Press Production!!!

Read "I Want To Hear From You" at his blog page as it starts like this...

For those of you who did not receive refunds from PhotoPress Production, I want to hear from you. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I cancelled my tour before I ever received a contract for the workshops from PhotoPress Productions. I feel absolutely terrible about this situation, even though I had no responsibility regarding bookings and refunds... I want to make this right...

Sounds interesting don't you think... SO GO READ IT RIGHT NOW!!!

---//---

Stolen Camera Finder, Helps You Find Your Camera

Just came in touch with this great new webpage Stolen Camera Finder, it's a very interesting idea done by the programmer Matt Burns on a two-year project that has just seen the light.
If you ever lost your camera or you have it stolen you will know that retrieving it becomes little short of a miracle. This online service aims to help you somehow to try to locate it.

The idea is to use the serial number that many cameras embedded in the EXIF data of pictures. You just need to drag a photo from your computer into the browser to automatically search the web for the serial number. It only works if the photo you are dragging is originally taken from the camera and not one you already altered.

There are two search engines, one uses the API to Flickr to crawl the site and a database of images that will appear to grow as volunteers help create the plugin for Chrome, which records all that information in the background without interfering with your navigation.

The idea is very good but it has some drawbacks. We must use a JPEG straight from the camera, unprocessed, to keep the EXIF data (and the person using our camera has uploaded a photo in the same conditions). You can consult the list of compatible cameras but I hope that you never feel in the need to find a camera lost or stolen.

Hope this would help ou out on finding our stolen cameras.

LR Preset: Pro Styled - Herb Ritts

Black and White were never my strong. Even on the film days I tried the the best I can but color was always more appealing to me.

A lot of you been asking for LR Presets for the Black and White and I found that X-Equals got, this week, an excellent Herb Ritts simulation so I decided to share it with you.

Hope you like them.

Herb Ritts – Pro Styled

The first and most impost step in emulating any photographer’s style is to study their work. You can start by viewing the gallery presented on Herb Ritts’ website. Further studies can be carried out by viewing his books such as Pictures, Duo, Africa and his other works.

Study the poses, look at how light and dark interplay with the human form. Note his use of lines and curves, and how they are used to guide the eye. Look at how he uses both balance and imbalance in his images. Try to unlock how all these come together to create the image. Spend some time exploring Ritts’ body of work and get a feel for his photographic eye.

Once you are comfortable with your understanding of his works, start thinking about how you would recreate the effects on your own.

Do note, most of Herb Ritts’ style is produced in camera, as with many other great photographers. You really need to focus on getting your images as close to the desired goal at time of capture, you simply cannot rely on post processing to accomplish the feat of simulating his unique style.

A few tips you may want to consider:

* Use a yellow filter to view your subject before shooting. Visualizing your shot through a yellow filter helps you see the difference in tones in your subject, eliminating much of the color.
* When shooting outdoors, go ahead and put that yellow filter on your lens. Since our target image will be a black and white image, the yellow filter will help by eliminating excess blue light, which will level out skies and bring a better balance to your image.
* Shoot both High Key and Low Key images, but be sure to have good contrast when doing so. Especially with abstract shots of parts of the body, you will want to consider a bright overall image with deep darks in the subject or vice versa. Use your environment and subject to your advantage.
* When shooting with your full dynamic or even high dynamic range, focus on a good balance of dark and light with good, but not extreme contrast. Look for emotion in your subject for these shots and pose for either strength or vulnerability depending on your specific goal.
* When shooting with natural lighting, think outside the norms of photography. Put the sun at your subject’s back, or shoot at high noon, and kick up the contrast wih filters or post processing.
* When using studio lighting or strobes, use some extra lights on a light back ground for High Key images. Or shoot on a dark background and focus more light on your subject, enhancing contrast.

These tips are just the tip of the iceberg, and you will have to experiment with them and your own ideas to find what works right for you. But to help you along, here are some presets we designed to help you get the final look a bit quicker.

These presets are designed to allow you to quickly take your image to one approximating the style of Herb Ritts. Be warned, these presets can be a bit heavy handed, so don’t be afraid to make some fine adjustments to what they generate. The presets included in the download are as follows:

* PS Ritts Curve 1 – This preset contains a fairly conservative Tone Curve, designed to enhance contrast, while maintaining the general brightness of the image. It has a moderate increase in Clarity to get a bit more pop.
* PS Ritts Curve 2 - Another custom curve, this time shifting the Tone Curve much darker, while retaining a high level of contrast. Also maxes out Clarity to enhance fine detail in darker images.
* PS Ritts Curve 3 - Again, a custom Tone Curve, dramatically brightening the image, with a minor kick to Clarity, creating an overall high-key and soft effect.
* PS Ritts Mix HIE - A customized version of the Cold Storage Kodak HIE infrared preset, providing a palette suitable for Ritts type work.
* PS Ritts Mix Pan-X - Another customized film emulation, using Kodak Panatomic X as its base.
* PS Ritts Mix Plus-X – Customized Kodak Plus-X preset for a more natural appearance.
* PS Ritts Mix Tech Pan – Kodak Technical Pan emulation tweaked for Ritts style use.
* PS Ritts Mix Tri-X - Tri-X as well, of course.
* PS Ritts Punch – A preset that endows a bit of surreal realism to your image. Brings out detail using Recovery and Fill Light and brings it back to Earth with a hit of Blacks adjustment.
* PS Ritts Yellow Filter – A preset that adjusts White Balance to emulate a yellow filter being used. Not for every photo, but can drastically lighten many.

As with all our X-Equals presets, these are designed to be used in unison to create the desired effect. Also, be sure to try other black and white color mixes, such as the Curve presets from our own Cold Storage to open up a world of new B&W effects. After you get the effect about where you want it, adjust Exposure or Brightness to balance out your image.

Thank you X-Equals for having made this wonderful set.

Adobe Lightroom 3.4 & Camera Raw 6.4 RC versions are here

Adobe put up today 2 new release candidates for Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 are now available as Release Candidates on Adobe Labs.

The final releases of Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 may have additional corrections or camera support.

New Camera Support in Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 Release Candidates

* Canon EOS 600D (Rebel T3i / Kiss X5)
* Canon EOS 1100D (Rebel T3 / Kiss X50)
* Hasselblad H4D-40
* Olympus E-PL1s
* Olympus E-PL2
* Olympus XZ-1
* Samsung NX11

New Lens Profile Support in Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 Release Candidates

Canon Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L IS USM
Canon Canon EF 28-70mm f/2.8 L USM
Canon SIGMA 85mm F1.4 EX DG HSM**
Canon TAMRON 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3DiII VC PZD B008E
Nikon Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
Nikon Nikon AF-S DX VR Zoom-NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED
Nikon Nikon AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED
Nikon Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-120mm f/4G ED VR
Nikon SIGMA 85mm F1.4 EX DG HSM
Nikon TAMRON 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3DiII VC PZD B008N
Nikon Leica APO-MACRO-SUMMARIT-S 1:2.5/120mm
Nikon Leica SUMMARIT-S 1:2.5/35mm ASPH.
Nikon Leica SUMMARIT-S 1:2.5/70 mm ASPH.

**These lens profiles were in the previous release but have been updated to address quality concerns.

Bugs Corrected in the Lightroom 3.4 Release Candidate

The following bugs that were part of previous Lightroom 3 releases have been corrected. The team appreciates the very detailed feedback the community has provided on Lightroom 3 and we’re excited to correct a number of issues experienced by our customers. These issues have been FIXED

* Lightroom encountered issues presenting double-byte character metadata after the image was edited on Photoshop.com.
* Publish collections did not work properly if the sort order is set to descending. (“Z to A”).
* Using the up/down arrow keys or the mouse wheel to adjust a parameter while the graduated filter is activated caused increments of plus or minus 100 instead of 1.
* Interlacing artifacts, and a slight magenta cast in the deepest shadows could have appeared on some high-contrast edges of Canon mRaw files.
* A magenta color cast could have appeared on Nikon D7000 images if the multi-exposure feature was used with raw capture.
* Video files were allowed to be added to a SmugMug publish collection not capable of supporting video uploads.
* Folder creation caused an expanded folder hierarchy to close unexpectedly in the Library Module.
* Please provide feedback on your experience with the Lightroom 3.4 Release Candidate Bug Report Form.

Camera Raw 6.4 Release Notes

* Camera Raw did not allow write-back capability for the EXIF GPS properties
* The DNG File format did not support XMP Media Management
* A JPEG file with a specific characteristic was found to have a pink cast
* The undo command (Command Z) was failing to undo crop adjustments
* Single images marked for deletion were not moved to the trash
* A magenta color cast could have appeared on Nikon D7000 images if the multi-exposure feature was used with raw capture
* Please provide feedback on your experience with the Camera Raw 6.4 plug-in and the DNG Converter on the Camera Raw User to User forum.


Direct Downloads:

Adobe Lightroom 3.4 Release Candidate information

For Win 

For Mac

Adobe Camera Raw 6.4 Release Candidate information

For Win 

For Mac)

2nd Strobist WS in Luxembourg - SOLD OUT

THANK YOU to everyone who will participate.

Both days are now SOLD OUT.

Just a reminder that the Workshop will take place on the 5th/6th March 2011 at Espace H2O in Rue Rattem - ‪Differdange‬.

This will be a full day with lot's of information about the gear you can use and also 8 models per day to photograph under 4 setups.

In the morning you can count with a more in-depth review of the gear and in the afternoon some setups would be build so participants can practice different lighting situations.

Also included are Lunch, coffee, soft drinks and some snacks so you won't miss anything.

For more information's you can contact me directly.

See you there.

Take a look at what happened last time.

Luxembourg 1st Strobist Workshop - 8 Jan. 2011

And a BTS video.