Feb 18, 2015 | WRP Ed Zone
There are many ways you can move your photography forward, one is side by side shooting with someone wanting to share what they’ve learned. I think that’s what we are able to provide you. We offer a whole bunch of in the field learning opportunities and time to time, I get the message to run the scorecard as questions seem to flood in asking where we have space. So here’s the offerings and what openings we have at this time.
Mar 09 ’15 Birds on the Beach, FL – 1 spot
Mar 18-22 ’15 CA-OR – 1 spot
Apr 17-19 ’15 K&M Air Adventure AZ – FULL
Apr 25 ’15 London Passion in a Click – cpl of spots
Apr 26 ’15 England Warbird Day shoot – 2 spots
May 13-17 ’15 The Smokies – FULL
June 10-14 ’15 Glacier Adventure – FULL
June 26-28 ’15 K&M Air Adventure ND – 1 spot
July 27 – Aug 5 ’15 Africa – 2 spots
Sept 23 – 27 ’15 Rockies – 1 spot
Oct 21-25 ’15 Bryce – 1 spot
Descriptions and pricing can be found on our Workshop page. Or you are more than welcome to give Sharon a call 661.204.1506 who is more than happy to answer your questions and get your registered. I truly look forward to shooting with you!
Feb 11, 2015 | WRP Ed Zone
We’re very excited to be able to announce our 26 April England Warbird day shoot! We are being hosted by the Historic Aircraft Collection who has a marvelous collection of aircraft. This is a dayshoot which we’ll shoot in the morning and end after dark. We will cover photographing static aircraft from the big landscapes to the detail shots. We will also spend time in the digital darkroom which is such an important part of the storytelling finishing. Orientation for the dayshoot will happen the night before at the of our all day Passion in a Click presentation. At this time, there are only a few openings left as folks who have already signed up for the all day presentation. It’s going to be a great day featuring heroes of the Battle of Britain and we can’t wait to share it with you! We might have a surprise or two :-)
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Feb 10, 2015 | Moose Adventures
Red rocks, deep amphitheaters, unbelievable formations all in gorgeous fall light, amazing skies for heavenly bodies and star trails and a quiet that’s just has to be experienced. Photos and that description don’t begin to explain Bryce Nat’l Park! Sharon & I are thrilled to be taking a small group of adventurous photographers to a favorite locale of our, Bryce Nat’l Park 21-25 Oct, 2015. We’ll pick you up at St George airport, give you one helluva of a fun week in and around Bryce and then take you pack tired and full of images afterward. The price is $1695 and includes transportation to and from the airport and during the event plus instruction (photographic and digital darkroom). We’ll be taking a maximum of 6 folks; 50% deposit required to secure your spot. If you’d like to join us, and we hope you do, give Sharon a call 760.924.8632 / 661.204.1506 9-5PST M-F. Look forward to sharing the Hoodoos with you!!!
Feb 4, 2015 | WRP Ed Zone
I spent A LOT of time with my father in the woodshop growing up building all sorts of projects. Learning from his father, a taylor in Hollywood, we had a very set method for each new project. We would first do our homework providing a mental plan of what we wanted to accomplish and most importantly, why. That would often produce a diagram to follow to completion. We then went about gathering first the tools needed to complete the task and then all the materials necessary. Gathering all the parts was a big portion of the project, great care was used in selecting each piece. Once we were in motion, Lord help anyone or anything that got in the way of completing the project. Then came assembly and finally finishing. My dad would always say, “Assembly is 1% and finishing 99% of the job.” We eat dinner on the dinning room table he made to this day and my desk I’m typing at is my grandfathers desk. So I’m always reminded of these lessons.
“Mr Prolific,” I was called that just again yesterday with the follow up of, “How do you do that?” Many call me this because of all the content I create and get published on a continual bases. When I told Sharon yesterday that I was able to get five new article proposals out she just smiled and said, “That’s what you do.” My formula though is not mine, it was handed down to me and drummed into my thick skull, I just put a few of my own twists of passion on it. But this is how I get so much content created and out. You can do it too!
I still do the homework, be it for a new location, new subject or new technique. In part because it was what I was taught to do and in part because I am a control freak. It’s what is often referred to as planned luck. Then I start to assemble the parts and that is often the most expensive and time consuming part of the equation. Parts in this case are photographs, lots of them! These photos when assembled have to do more than tell a story for me, they gotta reach out and touch the heart. The majority of the time, I’m assembling parts for more than one project at any given moment. I have a number of ideas in my head and try for economic and passion sake, tackle all I can at once. It is only when I have all the parts and I love those parts, have my heart into all those parts does assembly begin. As my Populur Photographer editor always told me, “Write from your files.” With those images shot and finished, the assembly which is writing the words, comes pretty darn easy. And with that comes the hardest part, finishing the project so it shines to the best of my ability.
As you might guess since it is a business venture, there is a little bit more to it than just this. For example, you’ve gotta have an end buyer for your text/photo package in mind. And there is that little detail of getting the photograph which in some cases, requires more than just leaving the office. And the biggie, being able to deal with utter and total failure anywhere along the way which includes rejection of your idea to start with. But with the investment of mind, soul and heart, come the next day you’re right at it again and hopefully, wiser. So, there you have it, “how I do it” day in and day out. I guess you could just call it the old family recipe.
Jan 29, 2015 | WRP Ed Zone
We’re so happy to offer a shooting opportunity, even if brief. We’ve been asked if we’re offering any Florida Bird photography “weekends” in 2015 like we did in 2014. Our schedule has jammed us up but we are able to offer are two “day” shoots in Ft Myers, FL 05 March and on 09 March. These will be all day, sunburn driven, bird photography crazed day shoots. Ft Myers is one my favorite locations for shorebirds, even shot a KelbyOne class there. We’ll work on techniques from working with long lens, working from the sand, biology, backgrounds and much more.
I wish I had more time to spend on the sands chasing the birds this winter. I hope you can join us for the day. If you want to join me (and just two others) on the sands, need to give us a call, fast! Taking just three shooters, price for the day of shooting is $795 and a portfolio review after. If you can join us, give Sharon at 760.924.8632 / 661.204.1506 9-5PST M-F.
Jan 27, 2015 | WRP Ed Zone
The cropping of an image, the question seems to land at my doorstep a lot since it’s well known, I don’t crop in post. I thought I would repost this post again in trying to answer why I strive for the craftsmanship in the viewfinder before anywhere else.
It must have been the first or at the most, the second crit at school the very first semester of the very first year. A student put up their image up on the screen and it was this little, itty pity image. I scratched my head, the instructor just stared. He took the slide out of the carrousel and looked at it, it was all taped up with silver tape leaving this little aperture leaving “the subject” only visible. All Steve said was, “What, you couldn’t have moved closer, changed lenses?”
I seem to have earned quite a reputation for many things, one of them is having a thing against cropping an image in post. So I’ll say this right off the bat so you don’t have to read any further if you don’t want to, what anyone does with their images is strictly up to them! I am not the photo police! But when photographers show me their images and ask for comments, then they will get my comments and when I see an image that has been cropped (yes, I think it’s really easy to see), what screams through my head is, “What couldn’t you have moved closer or changes lenses?”
Back in the day when I started, submitting prints to photo buyers was on its way out, submitting slides was in. Once printing went away and all that was submitted were slides, then composition was still all done in the viewfinder, that was it. There was no cropping to be done in printing, it was all done.
When sending slides to photo buyers, taking your image and applying the very obvious silver tape to “crop” the slide in the slide mount stuck out like a sore thumb. I remember one conversation with a photo buyer complaining about a photographer who had done just that, sent in their slides cropped with silver tape. All the photo buyer could say was, “You have any idea how stuck those images were in the slide page?” That wasn’t an impression I would ever want to leave with a photo buyer, slides covered with stickem. I could get right in the viewfinder. So what does that have to do with this day and age and digital?
Yeah, you can set a preset with the Crop Tool in Photoshop and crop all day long. And unless you make a print 24×30, you probably won’t see any possible quality loss from cropping. So then why do I not crop my images still? It’s just one of those benchmarks I took hold of that signifies a photographer as, a photographer. It goes along with getting the exposure right and the image sharp when you go click. You compose within the viewfinder and get it right when you go click.
When I look at the work of those who I hold in high regards, they too do all their cropping in the viewfinder as well. I’m sure there are a lot more and there’s a reason for that standard. Arranging the elements in the viewfinder so the subject pops and the rest of the elements support the subject while telling the story, well, isn’t that visual story telling? That’s my definition of photography. There are definitely pros and cons to this standard. The pros are the workflow is simpler and faster (important when you’re in the business of selling images) and quality assured. Cons, the biggest one is it makes taking the photo one helluva of a lot more challenging when you know you’ve gotta get it right when you go click. And when you don’t have it, you don’t go click.
You might have heard I don’t like my images cropped even when they are used editorially. That’s true, I get kinda serious when an photo buyer wants to edit my click. I mean, why buy the photo in the first place if you don’t like it? If you got a copy of my book Captured, rest assured those images aren’t cropped either. I was very blessed in that I had the best in the biz, Jess laying out the book honoring my no cropping request. In those regards, I am totally, completely, out there on my own. I am a nut! And that’s the whole point!
Just because that’s my standard, it does not mean a single other photographer has to follow it. But if you ask me about your photo, heads up. It’s my own quest in being a better photographer, to get it right when I go click. I rather love being able to say, “What you see is what I saw in the viewfinder” when it comes to the crop (landscape & aviation images are often finished in PS. Wildlife images are not). When you don’t give yourself the option to “fix it in post,” photographers push themselves. This always make a better click and the story telling, the subject, that passion of that click becomes clearer and clearer. We all must find whatever the tools, techniques and personal vision at the camera and the computer that work best for you. For me and my photography, that means using my feet and lens to put in the viewfinder what it is I want to communicate to you the passion I’m feeling at moment.
