Workshop Details

Lightroom Classic for Passionate Street & Travel Photographers 1: 

Organization & The Library Module

*Spring 2025: Lightroom Classic for Passionate Street & Travel Photographers 2:

Enhancing Your Images & The Develop Module

*Fall 2025: Lightroom Classic for Passionate Street & Travel Photographers 3:

Creating books and slideshows with music with The Book & Slideshow Modules

In recent years Adobe has enhanced and improved Lightroom Classic to make it a powerful program for photographers to use from ingest to export, allowing you to pull the very best out of every file and make prints, books, slideshows and websites without the need to leave the program.

Please note: This course is specifically for Lightroom Classic and does not cover the cloud-based versions of Lightroom. It will be a live, interactive class held over six sessions, with a maximum of 12 students. You’ll also receive access to the recorded online version of the class (a $199 value), which you can use as a resource for your learning.

This is a live course that meets every couple of weeks via Zoom and includes real-time interaction between the instructor and students. Sessions are scheduled Wednesdays from 10am to Noon, which allows you immediate feedback, discussions, and questions. This format fosters a sense of community and engagement, but requires more commitment to attend the live meetings or at least review the recorded sessions if you miss one.

If you prefer, there is also the passive online course (included) for access to the pre-recorded lessons designed for self-paced learning. Students access video lessons on their own schedule but there are no live sessions as with this course. 

Of all Lightroom Classic's comprehensive features, it’s the Library Module that might be most important in understanding and harnessing the power of Lightroom to make you a better photographer. 

I have spoken to hundreds of students and a problem that keeps coming up is confusion as to how Lightroom organizes and maintains your images; where the actual RAW images are and how to organize and get them when you need to.

Understanding these concepts allows you to take full advantage of the amazing program. If you’ve previously had trouble with Lightroom, I urge you to try again because Lightroom Classic will have a  powerful, positive impact on you and your future work. 

Imagine a world where your precious photographic archive is completely organized, key-worded and safely backed up. From there you can use the powerful Collections feature to dig deep into your work and come up with new sets of pictures for projects that lead to finished portfolios, books, websites  and gallery shows. 

Lightroom’s extreme versatility and comprehensive feature set, means a fairly steep learning curve. This is why I'm creating this three-part course designed to take you from start to finish in order of urgency. 

Some of the topics covered in this course include:

Setting Up Lightroom Preferences & Overview

The Importing Process & Understanding Previews

Where To Store Your Images and When/How To Move Them

Folder Organization & Management: Creating A Folder Hierarchy  

Moving Folders & Images & File/Folder Renaming

Finding Missing Folders & Photos

Choosing & Customizing Your Workspace: Grid, Loupe, Compare and Survey Views

Catalog/Folder/Collections Panel

The Power of Collections & How To Best Use Them

Organizing With Smart/Quick/Standard Collections & Collections Sets

The Quick Develop Panel

The Power of Efficient Key-Wording 

Metadata Panels & Presets

Simplify Your Editing Process with Stacks

The Power of Lightroom Search Using Filters

Using Lightroom Classic On The Road: Creating and Combining Catalogs

Lightroom Classic's New Content Credentials To Secure Your Images For Export

Frequent Keyboard Shortcuts and The Culling Process: Start To Finish

Learn in a clear and easily understood way from The Passionate Photographer Steve Simon.

Our Venue: Your Home via Zoom

Testimonials

While putting together my street photography book, I felt I needed an editor that I could trust because I knew they would be helping me with my decision-making process.  I was familiar with Steve Simon because I used to listen to ‘This Week In Photography’ religiously when I first started getting into taking pictures.  He was my favorite personality on the show because he always seemed to have such a thoughtful and empathetic angle to the topics of the day.  That lead me to read his book, “The Passionate Photographer,” (also great) and I have tried to incorporate what I learned from it into my approach as an artist.  Finally, it was Steve’s eye and impressive work as a street photographer himself that solidified my choice to use him as a consultant for my project.

I’m so glad that I did!  Steve was as gracious and thoughtful as I always imagined he would be.  He was able to look at my work and shake up how I viewed it.  I told him all sorts of wild theories and wonky philosophies about how I saw my work, and he as able to sort through all the fluff and get me to focus on the core of my message.  He did this with sensitivity and tact.

And through it all, he was more amiable and responsive as I could have reasonably expected.  I ended up paying for five separate sessions because his input was that valuable.  Our conversations allowed me to save countless hours debating random minutiae with myself (that would have probably ended up nowhere and being a big waste of time), and our time together fostered an accelerated growth in me as an artist.  In less than a month of interaction, I feel like I am in an entirely different place as a photographer, and I feel that Steve is a significant reason for that. 

I can’t recommend Steve highly enough!

Tony Le

I started working with Steve because I wanted to move from making individual pictures to working on photographic projects. Our first couple of sessions had an immediate impact on my photography in two ways.  First, Steve looked at a sample of my work, selected several strong images, and showed me what made them work.  We also talked about the images that didn’t work as well.  We dug into my picture making process and explored what I could do differently to increase the number of strong images I make. The sessions are interactive, so I can ask questions to be sure I understand Steve’s feedback.  Second, Steve looked at the strong images as a group and showed me how they could be the start of a coherent body of work. I really appreciate that he helped me begin to identify and develop my personal vision.  HIs questions and comments helped me sharpen the focus on what my project can be. In each session, Steve’s thoughtful suggestions and encouragement are helping me make steady progress on my goal of being a better photographer.  

Larry Felton

Steve Simon is a gifted instructor and also has the amazing ability to help you understand what you have unconsciously captured but may not have seen. You can then embrace that visual voice/style with direction and clarity. He is genuine and focused on your growth as a photographer … which is why I and so many others come back to his workshops and mentoring sessions.

Denise Pensky

It is said that people tend to emotionally support and defend that which they have created. Nowhere is that truer than for photographers in the pursuit of intended audiences for their photographs. We can subconsciously become prejudiced arbitrators when it comes to evaluating, editing, selecting and sequencing our own images. The private mentorship and critique sessions I’ve participated in with Steve Simon have been invaluable in helping me to cast off the emotional baggage attached to my photos allowing me to see them as they are and how they may relate to each other to form coherent collections greater than the sum of their parts. 

 Owen Seidenberg

I would never be where I am professionally without great mentoring.  Thus, I knew the very best way for the quality of my photography to progress was to find an exceptional photographer as a mentor. Steve Simon has delivered big time…..with insight, skill, incredible editing ability and, of course, passion for the art.  Give him a try, it is a great investment.  

Jeff Carson

I participated in one of Steve’s Havana workshops, and recently had a online zoom discussion with him.  He has a comprehensive knowledge of Nikon’s equipment as well as the best photographic techniques to capture great images. Moreover, he is an easy and fun guy to talk with because, clearly, he is genuinely interested in helping others enjoy photography.   

Stephen Handley

“A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?”  

– Ernst Haas