It's been a while, pre-Covid, since I've been on the speaking/teaching circuit, so when The Professional Photographers of America asked for volunteers to conduct in-studio workshops last month, I thought I'd step up and answer the call.
The PPA is the premier trade organization of professional photographers, and degree holders, like me, are pleged to share their knowledge and expertise freely and openly. I hold the degrees of Master Photographer and Photographic Craftsman from the PPA, and I have learned a great deal throughout my career from attending PPA workshops, conventions, and programs. So, it's good to give back!
The title of my workshop was "Unleash Your Creativity". My goal was to give my students some tools to enable them to take control of their photography in order to free their minds to be more creative, stop fiddling with the camera so much and engage with their subjects, and hopefully, take their photography to the next level.
We don't get paid at all for these full day workshops, but nevertheless I opted to bring in a model, at my expense, to give my students some hands on experience with the techniques I taught them.
Carly, a terrific model I have worked with before, came down from college for the afternoon and was a real trooper posing for the 9 photographers (plus me) in attendance.
Topics we covered were
Things that block your creative energy and how to overcome them.
Getting comfortable with posing and directing your subjects so you can concentrate on the image.
Lighting the portrait subject, both indoors and out, and the importance of creating dimension and depth with your lighting.
How to establish a mood and get the expressions you want from your subject without resorting to saying cheesy words (pun intended) or eliciting fake smiles.
After each photographer had the time to shoot some images in each location, we spent some time in Lightroom and Photoshop and touched a little bit on post processing and retouching.
Evryone had a great time, and I got 100% positive reviews! A successful day!
Check out some of the images the student's made of Carly from that day.
0 Comments