posted September 1, 2011 in Photographer Resources, Portraits 3 Comments

Free to Create: Workshop Highlights

Not too many business industries we train our ‘competition.’ Yet as a Denver wedding photographer, I know well that we can only shoot one wedding on any given Saturday. So when I speak with a bride about a date for which I am booked, I am happy to pay it forward and pass the referral along to a friend. It’s what makes the wedding industry so cool. We all help each other.

I saw that theme clearly at the Free to Create workshop held in Sterling, Colorado two weeks ago. I was honored to speak to a packed crowd of Mile High Photographers who drove the 2 hours from Denver to participate. BTW: I’m still plucking bugs off my Sportwagon grill… still well worth the trip! The goal of the workshop was to take a step out of the box to create something unique, daring in a supporting and educational environment. We encouraged each other to take chances at the risk of failure. Safely to say, everyone has a blast and learned a ton!

I love the warm/cool push/pull juxtaposition of the warm and cool colors. Eerily appropriate, considering we were shooting in a haunted beet mill. See the ghost?
Don’t forget to focus when lightpainting, otherwise you could end up with this a blooper in the making (we all shared a few laughs):’Get out fast,’ jogged in my mind as I was thinking how I was gonna pull this shot off. Bingo! Inspiration hits where you least expect. Diamonds are always formed under pressure (no Photoshop compositing here): Always great to see collaboration, sharing, and learning during a photographer workshop in which no money exchanged hands (the way it should be). Samantha Randall created her first lightpainting of Sarah Heinle. I was so proud of them both for trying something new (kind of like getting a kid to like broccoli). I enjoyed playing my Alien Bees ring flash. Shooting with a ring flash requires a bit of practice. For starters, you’ve got this big circular thing adding bulk to the camera and creating a small wall between you and the subject… not something that many first timers are used to. But, not mounting the ring flash on the camera, and holding it in my left hand while camera in the right, I’m still able to interact and point and guide the subject when necessary and not hide behind a camera rig. I share more about the technical in this blog post about using making a portrait with ring flash as on-axis fill. Love the fashion vibe! Andy Wood makes a cameo appearance: Workshop host Scott Stebner did a great job with all the logistics and I thank him for being such a great friend!
Ross Bothwell does his best Joe Buissink impression.If you couldn’t make it, I’m sorry to say you missed one big BYOL photo party (bring you own lights). And if you didn’t have a set to use, we all share! Here I set up my Alien Bees with a beauty dish and then handed folks my pocket wizard to trigger and helped them with camera settings. Learning can be that simple! Here’s a classic Kern-Photo setup (moon is real).
Again, ring flash as fill: Ode to the Wicked Which of the East I blogged about here. Grouping together a bunch of wedding photographers for a portrait is like herding blind, drunk cats.
Our group photo of workshop attendees that endured to the end:

My next photography workshop stops will be being a student at Elevate in northern Minnesota on October 10-13, 2011 then hopefully presenting (fingers still crossed) at Pictage PartnerCon in San Diego in November 7-9, 2011!

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Posted by R. J. on September 1, 2011