As a member of Professional Photographers of America I have the opportunity to host a Super1Day workshop for fellow professionals. This past week I hosted two workshops. Monday’s workshop was Intermediate Photography and we covered a range of issues from pricing questions, posing issues, lighting and off camera flash on location. Everyone left pumped and ready to practice new techniques and refine old ones. I was quite intimidated when I learned that one of the students (Duane Chambers) was up for the Grand Imaging Award at the latest PPA Convention! But he was very sweet and I really enjoyed getting to know him.
Thursday’s workshop was more out of the box. I hosted my first Photographers’ Shootout. The goal was to get everyone out of their comfort zone and force the right side of the brain to take over. It worked, they were pushed to use lights, props, and situations that they hadn’t used before to create either a traditional portrait, or something totally unique to them. One scenario was a video light (the iceLight) and twinkle lights, another was a baby (yes, not everyone shoots babies), and of course there was a studio free for all where they could go through whatever they found and make use of it to create an images.
I shot a few images and spent the rest of the time floating between stations and assisting by holding reflector, offering lighting or posing tips, or bringing in new options for creating drama in the images. An example can be seen in this first image of Allison where I gave a cooking cooling tray to Duane Chambers of Hermitage, TN, who used it to create this very dramatic image. You’ll also see an image of Kim where Duane held a light bulb in front of his lens to create a dramatic light pattern on the image.
Needless to say, everyone was forced to move into right brain mode and come up with something interesting in the situation provided. Below are some of the images from this week’s workshop.
Watch for upcoming Super1Day workshops in October at www.ppa.com under the Education tab. My current plan is to teach a CPP workshop during the October event. If there’s something you’d like to learn, give me a shout and I’ll take it into consideration for an upcoming workshop!
