Open House at VPW

I went to the Open House weekend at Vancouver Photo Workshops I quite like all the instructors and the photographers there and it's a really nice photographic community. Saturday: I really loved Rich Hulbert's lecture, "Photographing Structures: An Architect's Perspective". From his lecture, "Great urban spaces are created by making an awesome urban realm and then framing it within buildings" and "Photographs are framed objects within a setting". "Anticipate the Decisive Moment and Memorialize the defining frame." I'm especially interested in Rich's academic ideas of visual perception. Then I went to a marketing primer with Puya Kalili and Marc Koegel. Marc covered the fine art business side and stated it all starts with a good website, in APhotoEditor.com look for article, "It starts with a good website" and a good service is Livebooks. He suggested is also very important to do a portfolio review and enter good competitions. From the commercial side Puya spoke about pricing (standard commercial rate for commercial shooters in Vancouver: $1500/day base rate) and terms (retouching: $75/hr, time, usage rights, number shots, time, casting, MUA, talent, assistant/s....) and conditions (include cancellation clause). He stated that clients that aren't going to work with the conditions aren't worth working for (see example). Puya suggested Blink Bid as a software app for invoicing and billing and to go to APhotoEditor to follow what's happening in the industry. I was then going to go see Composition and Visual Language with Katie Huismann but I'm taking a course with her right now and had already just seen it, although it is so interesting I was tempted to do it again. Instead I watched Kathleen Hinkel's presentations photojournalism and street photography. I have gained a huge appreciation of street photography! I can't remember how Katie put it but when she was talking about positioning she mentioned that photographers can get into all types of funny positions to take photos and that the funnier the position probably the better the frame. (So when you see me lying contorted on the ground in Steveston trying to capture small dogs from their level don't worry about not laughing at me, I'll just take it as a compliment, lol.) Wow, quite the review! That was just Saturday. Here are some photos I took on the way into Vancouver on the skytrain:

  

And back on Sunday: First up was RAW Fashion Photography w/ Taseda Knight and Matthew Burditt. Although they both like to shoot outside in natural light they did a one light studio demo emphasizing the photographer's relationship with the model. Like I've heard Brian Demint say they repeated that light is light and an Ikea desk lamp is great (although Brian mentioned he picked his up at Canadian Tire). They both stated that they would like to see a standardized baseline pay rate for fashion photographers, they want to make art and build a community.

Kaj Svensson did a lecture on Macro Photography. I loved the 200mm macro effects. One thing I want to try (unfortunately only with my 105mm though) is the painting with light that he does. Go out in the dark, set up the camera on a tripod (not that you can do even daylight macro well without one) and with a flashlight paint over the spots you want to show up. It gave deep rich colours without the HDR effects.

I went to two of Syx Langemann's lectures. In the One-Light Demonstration Syx went logically through the effects of direct on-camera flash to off camera and then adding reflectors. His "Once I Was a Camera" lecture was a teaser for his course and inspiration from his personal projects - a great project that he invites others to join. Be Inspired. Last was Creative Lighting for Editorial Portraiture Demonstration with Wayne Hoecherl. I love his studio work and lighting. He works with lighting creatively and work with lighting creatively and gives a sense of place even if in studio against grey wall. None of his photos look like they were against a grey wall, or even just a wall!

At the end of Wayne's demo someone walked by me with a wet print that I just loved. I thought they had developed a print from film and asked how he did it. It turned out to be a piece that Ross den Otter did in his Alternative Photo Printing Processes demo. I never thought of taking that class as I don't think of myself as artistic and the printing process part is something I'm going to tackle at a later date.

But seeing Wayne's work I was totally inspired and excited, I'd love to present some of my stuff that way - see his Resin and Pigment gallery. I looked through his stuff and one shot I just loved and asked how much he sells it for. Wayne explained that he doesn't see it finished at that stage and from the print he mounts them on blocks and layers them with textures. But he gave me the print!!!!! He said that he didn't know why he had signed it :-) I'm so excited and can't wait to get it framed. Talk about inspiration. So a great weekend!! I didn't take photos on the train again but here are a couple on the street: