LA Center of Photography Flash Workshop 3/23/2014

Wow, I am terrible at posting photos of my own adventures in a timely manner! I went to one of the best workshops I have ever attended in March 2014, a workshop solely dedicated to learning how to use flash, and failed to share it on the blog. Flash, such a hard subject for any photographer to grasp, and luckily in the digital age we can take a photo, see its results, and adjust accordingly. Even with these technological advances I was still struggling with flash, it eluded me, and frustrated me, so I decided to do something about it. Flash Class was on Sunday 3/23/14 in Hollywood, I drove down from Las Vegas the night before and spent the night with my grams, got up really early Sunday to make the drive from Hesperia to Hollywood for this class, and boy was it worth the effort. Walking into the class I immediately felt out of place, seated were 15 or so class mates and in front of them piles and piles of ridiculously expensive top of the line photography equipment. My and my little mid-grade Canon felt like the Mini in race full of Mercedes and Beamers, we were a hell of a competitor and surely I am a hell of a driver, but the flash and features of my little camera were not comparable. I sat next to the other Canon shooters and immediately introduced myself to the women seated near me, sadly I cant remember their real names because I didn't blog sooner, but one of them was a older woman with a 5DMIII who loves travel photography (we will refer to her as Nancy) and another lady that has a food blog and a very snazzy Canon 5DMII herself (we will refer to her as Betsy). I am significantly younger and have far less life experiences under my belt than Nancy and Betsy so I did enjoy our discussion before the workshop started, and I found it astonishing that Nancy has never been paid for her photo work, and neither of the women have ever done a portrait session, wedding, etc... Betsy does have a food blog and that is amazing, but no real experience outside of that. So me with my puny little mid-grade Mini has more seat time that both these women with very very fancy expensive cameras, hello confidence booster! I'm now not so shy, or embarrassed of the Mini and my skill set!! Shortly after introducing myself to Nancy and Betsy Brian plopped in the seat next to me, and immediately I liked him. Brian is one of those people you can just look at and like, not because oh how he looks or what he wears, but simply the energy he exudes and the genuine smile he gives people. I knew the moment Brian sat down he would be my PIC (partner in crime) through this workshop and that we would be friends, and we were partners, and now friends.

The workshop starts, and my photo world is changed forever.  One of the highlights of this workshop was that I got to meet Julia Dean, she is amazing, really, you should look up her work. The other highlight was the information presented, we were taught a idea and then let out into the wild to test the idea. With Brian by my side we had a lot of fun, we learned inside lighting, fill flash, bounce flash, and how to implement flash into every possible way.  The photos below are certainly not my best work ever, but a sample of the ideas we were taught and we tested on our own. This course has thrown my work into another realm of awesomeness, and I have since shot one of the best wedding receptions of my career immediately following this course. This course has since changed my work, my creative flow, and has taken my level of skill to amazing heights, overall id say it was life changing.    

One little story I must mention, only because it dug deep into my soul and hurt my feelings 10 fold involves Nancy, Negative Nancy... This woman with all her fancy gear still shoots in auto mode, no real concept of how the camera or flash works, she was slow to change her settings, and was very needy as a workshop neighbor interrupting me, Brian, and Betsy constantly with questions about her own equipment. To be honest, Negative Nancy needed a more beginner course in photography to learn her equipment before taking such an advance course, regardless of this fact we all helped her maneuver through this challenging workshop. During the lecture, post her interrupting the 3 of us several times, Negative Nancy had the gall to tell me to "SHUSSH, keep quiet" during the lecture. Lets rewind this story a bit, during ANY class I have ever taken in the past 15 years, admittedly, I am very verbal, I nod when I understand a idea, I say yes when I'm excited that I understand the topic, and interact with the teacher, this is how I learn as annoying as it may be. Negative Nancy "shusshed" me, which was completely rude and hurt my feelings but I realized maybe I was being too loud and from that point forward I kept my mouth shut though I did continue nodding my head at the teacher (I cant keep all my learning awesomeness to myself!). After that section of the workshop we had a break where she came up to me and actually asked me "why do you do that in class? it was interrupting my learning. Where did you learn to do that? Who taught you it was ok to do that??" Really??? That's how I learn lady, and clearly it works because YOU ASK ME FOR HELP ALL CLASS!!!!!!! Just because you are older than I am doesn't mean you get to be rude to me, however, being raised as I was I am not impolite to older people so I kindly said "I don't know, I interact with the teacher and make noise and it helps me learn. I do apologize it was interrupting your train of thought and Ill keep it down" and I walked away. Now, I am not saying I was right to be making noise and interrupt her train of thought, regardless of the fact that it was completely unintentional and not malicious in any way, I immediately ceased my noise action, but for her to ask where I learned to do that, from who, and why do I do that was SO FLIPPING RUDE! The rest of the class I ignored all of her questions and during our workshop outings I avoided her like the black plague, even though she would come up to me and Brian and ask for assistance.  The moral of the story, just be kind. I feel good that I wasn't a rude a-hole to her, even though she deserved it, I kept true to how I was raised and I responded in a way that would have made my mother and grandmother proud. I also felt great knowing that my equipment is in now way a tell tale of the quality of work I produce or my skill set, sure, I have camera envy but that doesn't mean a damn thing.