Something folks never tell you when you announce you want to be a photographer for a living is, once it turns into a job, often you end up never taking photos just for fun. And something you love doing can actually become boring. Maybe that’s burnout. Whatever it is, one sure-fire cure is to challenge yourself to learn something new.
I will never forget the magic of learning photography for the first time in college. I am old enough to have experienced “old school” photography–basic black and white film photography training at my alma mater, Valdosta State University. Ah, the good old days! Learning digital photography wasn’t even a thing when I was there. Everything I’ve learned as a wedding, mitzvah and event photographer in the past ten years has been either from fellow photographers, Creative Live webinars or an amazing class I took taught by Zach and Jody Gray. Recently, my friend Josh (co-owner of AzulOx Photography) encouraged me to look into Precision Camera’s classes, where he teaches a wide variety of subjects. His food photography class was a great introduction and gave me (pun totally intended) a lot of food for thought.
This past Sunday, I spent several hours at TerrAdorna, a lovely wedding venue tucked in the rolling hill country near Manor, TX, while Josh showed seven of us how to play and make creative portraits using gels on lights, smoke bombs, and water (both rain, and a water hose when the rain fizzled out). Many thanks to Emily and Helena, who were phenomenal models and so easy and pleasant to work with, Josh, always a skilled and entertaining instructor, and Dory, co-owner of TerrAdorna for allowing us to use her venue! I hope you enjoy these creative portraits, which may or may have been facilitated by a shirtless instructor at one point. 😉
