Calendar
Discover the ultimate Photoshop workflow designed exclusively for professional artists—an award-winning system that transforms your creative process. This course unlocks insider secrets, time-saving techniques, and advanced tools used by top-tier designers to elevate your artwork to new heights. Whether you’re aiming to refine your skills, boost productivity, or create stunning, polished projects, this class will empower you with the knowledge and confidence to excel. Sign up now and join a community of passionate artists mastering the art of digital creation—because your next masterpiece deserves the best workflow!
About Stephen Burns
Stephen Burns (www.chromeallusion.com) is a digital artist and author of books on being creative with your digital tools. He is an Adobe AEL (Adobe Educational Leader) as well as an Adobe Community Expert and has taught digital creativity internationally. He is an Instructor at Goldenwest College and Santa Monica College and Coast College and Studio Arts of Los Angeles. He worked as a Pro-Artist for WACOM Technologies and he is the president Of Photoshop Users Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/photoshopusersgroup) which is currently the largest Adobe Photoshop Users group in the country.
He is guest writer for a number of magazines to include the feature article and front cover of Photoshop User Magazine (http://www.chromeallusion.com/articles_index.htm). In addition, Stephen is the author of the following books (http://www.chromeallusion.com/books.htm):
- “3D Photoshop For Creative Professionals”
- “Photoshop CS5 Trickery & FX”
- “The Art Of Poser & Photoshop”
- “Advanced Photoshop CS4 Trickery & FX”
- “Advanced Photoshop CS3 Trickery & FX”
- “Advanced Photoshop CS2 Trickery & FX”
- “Photoshop CS Trickery & FX”
He has discovered the same passion for the digital medium as he has for photography as an art form. His background began as a photographer 28 year ago and in time, progressed toward the digital medium. His artistic influences include the great Abstractionists & the Surrealists including Jackson Pollock, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Mark Tobey, and Lenore Fini, to name a few.
Stephen Burns has been a corporate instructor and lecturer in the application of digital art and design for the past 29 years internationally. He has been exhibiting digital fine art around the world at galleries such as Durban Art Museum in South Africa, Citizens Gallery in Yokahama, Japan, and CECUT Museum Of Mexico to name a few. Part of his exhibiting won him 1st place in the prestigious Seybold International digital arts contest.
He teaches Digital Manipulation Workshops online and privately. He is an instructor on http://training.xtrain.com/faculty/show/Stephen+Burns , Photoshop Café (http://www.chromeallusion.com/dvd_index.html), Layers Magazine (http://www.chromeallusion.com/tutorials_3d_layersmag.html).
Join us for a morning of photography in Oceanside as we explore a mix of urban color and historic architecture.
We’ll meet at 8:30 AM at Camp Coffee Company (101 N Cleveland St, Oceanside, CA 92054) for a light breakfast and a chance to connect before we head out.
From there, we’ll walk through downtown Oceanside to photograph murals and other interesting sights around the area. Once the streets get busier and the light gets harsher, we’ll drive over to Mission San Luis Rey (4050 Mission Avenue, Oceanside, CA 92057) to spend time photographing the mission and its beautiful grounds.
This outing offers a nice mix of street, travel, and architectural photography, with plenty of opportunities to look for color, texture, details, and composition.
A strong portfolio is more than a collection of good images—it’s a body of work with purpose and intent.
In this presentation, Andrew Hertel explores how photographers can build clear, cohesive portfolios across multiple formats, including websites, print portfolios, books, and smaller, goal-specific collections. Rather than focusing on trends or specific platforms, the talk looks at why portfolios matter, how galleries and portfolios serve different roles, and how thoughtful editing shapes the way work is seen and understood.
This session is practical, approachable, and relevant for photographers at many stages. Attendees will leave with a better understanding of how to evaluate their own work, make stronger editing choices, and create portfolios that communicate clearly—no matter the format.
About Andrew
Andrew Hertel is a fine art photographer specializing in black and white landscapes, wildlife, and nature photography. He is drawn to the way light, shadow, shape, and texture come together to define a scene, creating images that reflect the quiet beauty of the natural world.
Beyond photography, Andrew has a deep love for adventure and exploring remote landscapes. Whether on foot, motorcycle, or bicycle, he finds inspiration in the wild places he visits and the ever-changing conditions that shape them. His work has been exhibited at fine art shows and galleries, and he leads photography workshops in places like Death Valley and Kyrgyzstan, helping others experience and capture the landscapes in their own way.
For Andrew, photography is more than just creating images—it’s about being out in nature, embracing the journey, and sharing that experience with others.
Join us for our April Monthly Critique Night, held online this month via Microsoft Teams.
The meeting will begin promptly at 7:00 PM, and the online room will open at 6:45 PM for social time.
Our judge for April will be Larry Vogel.
Because we are unable to meet in person this month, critiques will be based on digital image submissions rather than prints. Members may submit up to three images total across the two categories, Monochrome and Color. Images accepted by the judge may be printed and hung in the Photographic Arts Building gallery at a later date, assuming we regain access to the building.
Visitors are welcome to attend. Image submission for critique is available to members only. For more information about joining Darkroomers, please visit our membership page and reach out with any questions.
About Larry
Larry Vogel has been involved in photography since 1976 and in recent years has become a multi-talented artist using several mediums to pursue and express his creative explorations, including, photography, ceramics, painting and sculpture. Larry has exhibited his work since 1979 and continues to exhibit nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at The Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite, California, the Susan Spiritus Gallery in Newport Beach, California, and the Africus, Johannesburg Biennale in 1997. Vogel’s work can be found in numerous private and corporate collections. He was awarded a photographic scholarship from The Friends of Photography for the Ansel Adams Photography Workshops in 1983, which Vogel says he was fortunate to be able to attend, as it was the last of the workshops that the renowned photographer, Ansel Adams, was alive to teach.
Larry is co-founder and past director of The Photographers’ Exchange, which has held monthly meetings for members since 1990. After leaving the group in 2011, Vogel created the Digital Photo Exchange, DPX, an online group which holds monthly critique sessions. Additionally, Larry has created a new DPX-AI online group. This DPX-AI group has been created in order to facilitate the investigation of new Artificial Intelligence processing and image creation as it relates to the digital photographer. More information can be found on the DPX tab in the above menu.
Larry Vogel has continued to evolve as a creative artist. He has created several bodies of work, some traditional in concept and technique, while others are very experimental and abstract in technique and vision. Because of his evolving approach, neither he, nor his works can be successfully categorized or pigeonholed, which Vogel finds somewhat refreshing and liberating. Vogel recalls a statement by another diverse artist, one in which he declares, “My diversity may be my claim to my obscurity!” Larry says, sometimes he feels that way too.
Vogel continued his artistic evolution as he entered into the digital age many years ago. And currently explorations have found Vogel wandering into the new Artificial Intelligence world. Although many of his contemporaries have questioned and held off making use of AI, Larry has embraced the new technology and formed new works in collaboration with AI. New collaboritive projects have already been been created, fusing AI created images with his own digital camera files and photo-compositing techniques in Photoshop.
Vogel has over 35 years experience teaching workshops, beginning many years ago with his own darkroom series of workshops and now with a full list of digital processing workshops and location workshops. Check out the list of current workshops being offered on the Workshops tab in the above menu.Vogel continues to offer his expertise in the critique process and has been sought out as a judge and instructor for many camera clubs and county fair organizers.