Santa Fe Workshops revisited

Well for those of you who missed me, I was at the Santa Fe Workshops in Santa Fe New Mexico and then went on to WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) annual convention in Las Vegas. here is a shynopsis of the week in Santa Fe. I highly recommend the workshops and hope to make it an annual trek to improve my skills.

Asher asked for a written report and I am happy to oblige.

I took a class from a Documentary Wedding Photographer named Dan Milnor. Dan was one of the most wonderful supportive teachers I have had. The class was titeled "Transitioning into Weddings" but it was an advanced all purpose people shooting class. Dan photographs multiple types of commercial projects and high end weddings. He opened his bag of tricks for us but made us all push ourselves with our skills - lighting, composition and endurance as well as some business skills.

The first outdoor assignment was to take photographs that we thought were in difficult lighting scenarios. I chose to work with my Canon 50 1.2L and went out in Noontime sun looking for harsh light, exposing for the subjects, to make good images. Most of the shots I took were pretty wide open adjusting my exposure compensation and I really surprised my self with how well the images came out. Nothing that would be award winning, but they were pleasing to me because of the technical. Certainly, a bride shot under the circumstances would have been pleased with the kind of results I obtained.

Here is a favorite :

We did an indoor model shoot - fashion style - using ambient light within a wonderful building with a theater, a hall/salon type of room and a dorm room - all places where a wedding might be shot. Even a commercial kitchen.







Our third exercise was to find people and get them comfortable within a minute or two to have relaxed viable portraits taken. For those of you who know me, that is generally not one of my weaker areas - I am quite chatty. I went back to my hotel for this, shot indoors in the lobby area where afternoon wine and cheese was served. My subject was an engineer in his late 50's with ambient window lighting and a lot to say. I shot him for 20 minutes and again was pretty pleased.

Welcome back our own Kathy!

I'm so delighted and impressed how diligent you have been in your journey from accountant to full time studio professional. I'm impressed that you have gone to the extent you have to be accokmplished and cto be able to deliver high standards.

Thanks for sharing these images.

You are lucky to be a natural social person andthat shows in the last picture and was utterly wasted on the first one!

The lighting on the laqst picture might need opening up the shadows in the girls face but otherwise I really like your work! The middle one, I'd love to see larger as the figures are small for the size shown. The subjects of that last picture are very relaxed and the poses are both excellent. Are they models. I have already worked out that the 50 year old guy is not shown or else he is drinking something I'd like to get hold of!

Asher

Asher

Here he is...



Asher - this was all ambient light and to see what we could do in difficult settings to create work for a wedding client documentary style. The subjects - except the chair - were paid but most were not really models. Two of the girls had posed before but every one else was new to "modelling"