Learning from the Masters

I would say that about 90% of my knowledge of photography comes from content I find scattered on the web. There is just so much out there to learn from. So many great photographers willing to share their knowledge and experiences through blogs, websites, videos, podcasts, etc... The best part is that most of it is completely free! All you have to do is be willing to look for it and dive in and absorb it all.

You can go on line at any time, in any part of the world and be inspired by the likes of Joe McNally, a respected National Geographic photographer, or David Zeizer, a successful and talented wedding photographer whose blog is updated on a daily basis with priceless information about everything from the business side of photography to how to train your assistants. David's website is so thorough and full of content that I don't know when he finds time to shoot his weddings! Respected fashion photographer Melissa Rodwell has a fantastic blog with several behind the scenes videos where you can follow her thought process through a high end fashion shoot - see all the people who make a fashion shoot happen: models, stylist, hair, makeup, assistants, art directors just to name a few (warning: Melissa's site is not always safe for work). 

The point is that these days all you need to improve yourself is the desire to do so ( and a broadband connection).

Practice Makes Perfect

I was a competitive gymnast all through high school and college, so I'm no stranger to the saying "practice makes perfect". In fact, we athletes tend to take it as a sort of universal truth. It keeps us going to practice every day in the never ending quest for perfection.

My coach was more of a realist. He always told me that this particular universal truth was missing something. He would say: "practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect". I always dismissed this as just an attempt by my coach to be funny, but then one day I got the following piece of advice from my dad, which kind of made everything fall into place. My dad said to me: "stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." Wow! It all makes sense now. My coach and my dad were really saying the same thing. Practice will not make you perfect unless you keep changing your approach. If you keep practicing doing something wrong, you'll just get really good a doing it wrong! You have to keep approaching the problem from different angles until you get it right. It's like evolution, if each creature born was exactly the same as their parents, nothing would evolve.

So what's all this got to do with photography anyway? Well, the same applies to photography. Practice makes perfect, but only if you keep changing things, trying new approaches to the same problem, experimenting. If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you will get the same picture every time.

Photographers I Like: Joey Wright

One thing  I love reading about in other people's blogs is which photographers they admire. I truly believe that everyone has something to teach so I love finding new photographers out there who may not be in the spotlight but whose work is just as good as that of the top shooters.

With that in mind, I decided to start a series where I present the photographers that inspire me. I'm not talking about the big guns like Ansel Adams, Joe McNally, or Steve McCurry. These guys are great and I enjoy and learn from their work, but I much prefer looking at photographers that are not household names in the industry. They seem to offer something a little more tangible that you can learn from - and their work is just as outstanding.

Lighting Essentials Workhop (Day 3)

Sunday, day 3 of the Lighting Essentials workshop on Anna Maria Island. By now I'm completely hooked and can't get enough of this workshop. The last 2 days have been amazing. I have been learning so much, not just about lighting but about photography in general. Don covers everything from using your speedlights to communication with the models. He also goes over some very important (and amusing) "don't be this guy" tips.

This last day of the workshop was all about shooting. We again met at 8am to start and the first thing we did was to create our "light meters". This is a Don Giannatti trick for a DYI light meter (which works surprisingly well by the way) but I will let you learn about it when you take his workshop. Again, it's not a secret and you can probably find a post about it on the Lighting Essentials website if you dig around enough but I just don't want to give everything away. I really would encourage you to find out when he will be close by and sign up for one of his workshops. If he doesn't have one scheduled close by, send him an e-mail and offer to set one up where you live. If you organize it, you can attend for free!!

Lighting Essentials Workshop (Day 2)

I was very excited about the second day of the workshop. More people had arrived the night before who could not make it for the full day on Friday. We were starting at 8am which was an early wake up call for me since my hotel was about 20 minutes away from base camp. Also we had talked shop until late on the first day so after arriving at the hotel and downloading all my images to my computer (backup) I ended up hitting the sack at just past midnight.

With about 5 hours of sleep, a full cup of coffee from the hotel and a welcome sugar rush thanks to Don providing donuts for breakfast, we started the second day. This was now truly the official Lighting Essentials workshop!

Lighting Essentials Workshop

This past December I attended the Lighting Essentials workshop in Anna Maria Island, FL. I have been a big fan of the Lighting Essentials website and Don Giannatti's work for a while now, so when I had the opportunity to attend one of his workshops here in Florida I jumped at the chance. The Anna Maria island workshop is a great deal too. It's actually a 3 day workshop for the same price as the usual 2 day workshops. We started on Friday and went all the way to Sunday talking and learning about photography from 8am to 11pm. This may sound gueling to most people but for me, it was a very exciting weekend and if I could have stayed longer I certaily would have.

The workshop was a good mix of lecture and demonstrations by Don and hands on shooting. We started on Friday by all getting together at the condo of Billy Kidd (his real name) who is a professional photographer from Orlando and was helping Don organize the workshop. We talked about photography for a good hour and then went across the street to the beach for some shots.