Joe McNally, a National Geographic photographer, gave a conference on his career and photography techniques. He showed photos from his career, including one of Diana Ross that some mistook for Beyoncé. McNally discussed taking risky photos, like one hanging from a helicopter near the Hollywood sign. He had volunteers try flash photography on stage, joking with them. McNally took multiple shots to get the perfect photo, showing the work involved. After questions, attendees got photos with McNally, including the student who recounted signing McNally's bag at the end of the charismatic presentation.

1. Joe McNally
ALEJANDRA LÓPEZ VÁZQUEZ
ENGLISH VIII

2. The arrival
On Saturday, Oct. 1st, I went to a conference by Joe McNally in FES Acatlán. I arrived at
8:30 a.m. at the entrance of the FES and I found many of my classmates. We decided to
wait in case someone else arrived but nobody came, so we started to look for the place
where the conference was going to take place. After asking a lot of people, we finally
found the place.

4. The Languaje of the Light
Joe McNally told us about his career as a photographer and showed us some of his
photos. When he showed a photo of Diana Ross, he laughed and said to us that surely a
lot of us would think that she was Beyoncé. He continued talking about his career and
said that he had been in a lot of countries as a National Geographic photographer and
this was one of the greatest things about being a photographer, the chances to visit a
lots of beautiful places. Also, he talked about all the crazy things that he had done to
achieve his job, like taking a photo hanging from a helicopter with his model near the
Hollywood sign.
As part of the conference, he called some volunteers to the stage to show the use of the
flashes to improve our photographs. This was the best part of the conference because it
was so funny, Joe McNally joked around with all the people on the stage and with the
translators too, he was a very charismatic person.

5. The photos that he took to the volunteers were amazing, in my opinión, and the most
important thing (in my opinion too) was that he didn’t achieve the perfect photo at the
first shot, he shot one, two, three, a lot of times, he was using flashes, diffusers and a lot of
photographic accessories until he was satisfied with the photo, something that we should
consider at the moment of taking our own photos.
After all this job, there was a break of 10 minutes, then, Joe McNally answered some
questions from the audience. I was interested in which of all his jobs like photographer
was the most important to him, but he never chose me (I was on one extreme of the
auditorium), but he chose a girl that wanted to know what his favorite photo was. He
said that he had a lot of favorite pictures, but, definitely, the photo that he most loved,
was a photo of his wife that he brought with him every place he went.
After the questions, a lot of people in the audience wanted to have a photo with Joe,
including me, so, after an hour, I could finally step onto the stage and get a photo; also,
he signed the bag that was given to us at the beginning of the conference.

6. The presentation of the
conference “The Laungaje
of the Light”.

7. The Diana Ross photo.

8. The photo were the model
and Joe McNally were
hanging from a helicopter
in Hollywood.

9. In the stage with a
volunteer (Oscar).

10. The photos of Oscar.

12. With the Fotofestín team.

13. The photo of a couple of
volunteers.

14. Answering questions.

15. Joe McNally and me.