Each Winter, I dedicate a few weeks to photography training. Over the past few years, I've subscribed to Kelby Training for one month during the winter. Usually, I end up completing 15-20 of the classes which cover a variety of topics.

Over the past ten days, I've watched several excellent videos from KelbyOne. Many of these classes covered general photography topics:

• Taming Natural Light by Erik Valind
• Bill Fortney's Olympic Park
• Long Exposure Photography by Matt Kloskowski
• Photographing the Moon, Stars and Milky Way by Jennifer Wu
• The Art of Digital Photography by Jay Maisel
• Architectural Photography by Richard Riley
• Photographing Cityscapes by Matt Kloskowski
• Secrets to Photographing the Best Dog Photos Ever Taken by Kaylee Greer
• Inspirational Interview with Professional Dog Photographer by Kaylee Greer

Then, I viewed a couple of course on some more technical aspects of Photoshop.

• Introduction of Photoshop LAB Color by Dan Margulis
• Mastering Channels and Masks in Photoshop CS5 by Corey Barker

At the end of the ten days, I viewed all of the courses that I was interested in for now. I've viewed 50 or 60 of the others in past years. Since I cancelled within ten days, all of the training was free! KelbyOne is offering a free ten day trial period right now.

The next step in my self-training this winter is to read two more books about Photoshop:

• The Photoshop Workbook: Professional Retouching and Compositing Tips and Techniques by Glyn Dewis
• The Way of the Digital Photographer: Walking the Photoshop post-production path to more creative photography by Harold Davis

If nothing else, the Kelby Training courses are very inspirational. I found the images from a couple of the photographers to be particularly outstanding--Kaylee Greer and Jennifer Wu. I now follow those photographers on social media. It also inspired me to explore long exposure photographer in more depth. So, I plan to "go long" with some very powerful neutral density filters--including a 16 stop filter that's on its way. I can't wait to get out shooting again!