What is “The Summit”?

The Great Smoky Mountains Photography Summit is comprised of several components.  Here is a “dictionary” of terms that may help you out…

“Field Session” – This is an opportunity for you to out into the field to shoot with one of the instructors as your guide.  These groups are limited to 10-15 people depending upon the destination.  Each participant is permitted to sign up for 3 guided field sessions.  Sign ups for field sessions will not take place until September, so don’t worry about it until then.  You haven’t missed something, we promise!   Field sessions are THE ONLY sessions that you need to sign up for other than Image Critiques.  Please note that the instructor is your guide, they are not actually teaching a class in the field.  They are there to point you in the right direction and answer questions one-on-one as you have them.  We encourage everyone to venture out on their own to shoot on the days they are not part of a guided field session.  We will give you pointers on places to go!

“Break-Out Session” – This is a classroom session.  Break-out sessions are held three at a time.  In other words, there will be three presentations going on simultaneously and you can choose whichever one you want to attend.  You DO NOT have to sign up or register for break-out sessions, just pick the one you want and go!   We try to offer each break-out session twice so that you will have the opportunity to go to all of the ones that you want, but the schedule may not allow us to do this for ALL of them.

“Keynote (or Large Group) Sessions” – This is a classroom session that is held for all of the participants in the main convention room.  There are no other sessions taking place at the time of the keynote (or Large Group) sessions.

“Image Critiques” – This is a one-on-one 15 minute appointment with you and an Instructor where you bring 8-10 of your images and they go over them with you to give constructive criticism and feedback.  We do ask that you sign up for these appointments as well simply because we only have space to conduct about 80-90 image critiques.  Sign ups for image critiques will also not be sent out until September, so, don’t worry, you haven’t missed them!

“Tradeshow” –  We will have vendors and instructors available in an area of the conference where they can display products and talk to you one-on-one about any questions that you might have.