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I had the honour once again of being asked to participate in Adobe MAX, and it was an event-filled week for me. While I did not have "booth duties" this year in the Community Pavilion, I was by no means slacking off. At MAX this year, I was:

- Teaching Assistant for pre and conference labs
- Co-host for the International Press Photo Walk
- Participating in the Adobe/Apple Influencer Event
- MAX speaker (two FULL sessions)
- Adobe Social Media Insider
- Unofficial photographer 

I'm including here in this project only a few images. I spent a lot of time telling my daily story using Adobe Spark Page and would love for you to check out those web stories and let me know what you think.
Adobe MAX Pre-conference
The one thing I had to ensure of for the pre-conference (other than - of course - reading the lab material) was to ensure I had suitable attire. As the pre-conference had a surfer theme, I selected my very best Hawaiian shirts for those days and indeed for the rest of the week. Below is a quick snap of one shirt, showing off the location for MAX this year - San Diego.

For the rest of the story on the Pre-conference (and many more images) visit my Spark Page, Adobe MAX 2016 Pre-Conference.
International Press Photo Walk
I was very happy to be selected as one of two photographers to host a photo walk with 60+ international press. We toured around a few blocks of downtown San Diego, mostly in the Gaslamp Quarter, taking photos and chatting. At first the large group was more interested in chatting that shooting, but we eventually got them working with the three models we had brought along for the walk. 

Adobe MAX Day 1
On the first day, Adobe showcased a lot of magic, most of which became available this week as Creative Cloud 2017. Updates to both desktop and mobile apps oohed and awed the crowd of 11,000+ attendees, the most highly attended MAX in history.

Adobe MAX Day 2
The keynote on day 2 was full of inspiration, featuring speakers such as Quentin Tarantino and National Geographic photographer Lynsey Addario. It was a lighter workload for me on Day 2, so I actually had a chance to tour the Community Pavilion, get my handwriting analyzed, and even chat a bit with Julieanne Kost!

Adobe MAX Sneaks and BASH
Perhaps the most highly anticipated part of MAX are the MAX Sneaks, where Adobe pulls back the curtain on its wizards to show magic and inspiration in the making.
Followed right after the Sneaks was the MAX Bash - a huge party that this year all but took over the Embarcadero, behind the San Diego Convention Center.
 
Don't take my word for it - check out the photos!
MAX BASH, as seen from my hotel room. I was well behaved that night, as I had TWO presentations to do the following day, one of which at 8:30 in the morning!
Yes... that is a water wall...
Adobe MAX Day 3 - Jim Fills the House!
I was very flattered to see well over 200 people come to my 8:30 am session on Friday morning. I had so much fun sharing Lightroom and Mobile tips and tricks throughout the day! My friend and colleague, Steve Adler, hung out to take photos during my session. A huge thanks to him for doing this.


Getting things set up. As you can see, I'm suitable attired in this original vintage Hawaiian shirt, designed by Reyn Spooner
My buddy, Steve, before the crowd made their way into the room.
Session Links
So this, in a nutshell was my week at MAX. It was exciting, inspiring and exhausting (in fact, I'm nursing what is likely the dreaded "conference flu" as I write this). But despite the scratchy throat and stuffed sinuses, I wouldn't turn down attending this event and being so heavily involved.

Below are all the links to the Spark Pages, in one place. Enjoy!






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