Thanks so much to all the fantastic photographers who came, to Valerie, who came from Oklahoma and also supplied the dapper male model Brandon, but beyond all else thank you to Wendy, who made the studio look fabulous, who supplied models and who even posed before the camera herself in all of her jumping glory — and mostly for putting up with so many of us crazy photographers for a weekend.

Along the way we broke onto my roof and found out “Hey, this is pretty cool!” So we’ve all learned valuable lessons.

Want to hear more? I’m speaking at B&H on Thursday. It’s apparently sold out (which is nuts because this is the first time I’ve even mentioned it on the blog!), but there is a wait list. More workshops to come in the late winter.

I had a fantastic time at the two-day workshop I hosted this weekend — I was really honored to have it sold out even though I announced it with less than a month’s notice. Even with that, people still came from all over North America. We spent a lot of time working on themes of using new techniques and expanding old ones to push yourself and keep your work fresh and exciting, so that it doesn’t feel like work at all. We started Day 2′s Shootshop with Brandon, and I wanted to show off that one of the purposes of a flash composite wasn’t just power, but the way that you can use it to shape light with a dramatic falloff. Somehow I managed to focus my Noct-Nikkor 58mm f/1.2 while staring directly into the sun.
—
Lens: Noct-Nikkor 58mm f/1.2 AIS
Camera: Nikon D3s

This year, I’ve smacked straight into the central contradiction of professional photography workshops: If your business is doing really well, you probably don’t have time to do lots of workshops about how other people’s businesses can do really well. I felt like it would be just wrong to not do a single NYC workshop the entire year, but there was the tiny problem that I’m booked every weekend until the Christmas season — except for that one weekend I was holding for a clear-my-head vacation.

And then I realized: The week before I’m shooting a wedding in the Berkshires and taking a few days to romp in the fall foliage. The week after I’ll be in Aruba, and then New Orleans. With a job like this, work is all the vacation I need.

But my time away from hosting workshops has given me time to think about how I can improve on them. I know that my past workshops must have been pretty good because of the people who keep coming back to multiple sessions, but I’m never satisfied. I know that there are so many different people out there who are looking for springboards to further their photography, and you all are at different levels in different areas and you all learn in different ways. Whether you’re to broaden your bag of technical skills, find the bridge from being a good photographer to a successful photographer, or just have a great time and network with other professionals while making killer photos, the educator in me wants you to walk away with more than you had when you came in.

How? More focus. More differentiation. More. Two back-to-back workshops, on Saturday and Sunday October 22 and 23rd in NYC, designed to work seamlessly for people who take either or both.

Workshop Day 1: Structured around lessons that will be useful for photographers of any level:

• Turning bad situations into good photos — dealing with bad light, bad locations, altered timelines, awkward subjects, etc.

• Keeping your passion — what to do when your hobby turns into work, or when you feel you’re stuck in a rut
• Pressing your business forward — why am I booked every weekend when there are so many other good photographers out there? I have absolutely no secrets about creating great experiences for clients, getting your work seen by the right people, and everything that happens from turning that initial e-mail into an ecstatic client.

There will be plenty of shooting with individual subjects and couples, generally around structured demonstrations that show you new ways to solve common problems and break down roadblocks. Day 1 is more similar to previous full-day workshops

Workshop Day 2: The primary goal of Day 2 is for every attendee to create insanely awesome images. We’ll have models, make-up artists, lots and lots of on-location shooting, all sorts of crazy equipment — big and small strobes, LED and incandescent continuous lighting, pretty much everything that Nikon has ever made — and just enough guidance to make sure that people aren’t just seeing great images being taken, but actually creating them themselves. Then we will have a shoot review and demonstration of everything that happens after a shoot, from culling to post-processing to telling stories through image display. Day 2 attendance will be capped to a small group.

Or, in short:

Day 1: Structured discussions of the hard-won lessons that can help you stay energized, creative, and successful, even when things in front of you look terrible in every possible way.

Day 2: Learning by doing, a mix of watching how I would take a scene to the next level and the freedom to do it yourselves, both in-camera and in post-processing.

Either day is valuable by itself, but they are designed to be taken together without feeling repetitive.

I know this this short notice for most people. At my last workshop, 85 percent of the attendees flew in from all parts of the globe, and late October is wedding season pretty much everywhere. Because of that, this workshop will have a bit of a discount:

Pricing: Either day costs $350 to attend. Both days cost $600 to attend, and people who attend both days will also get a free digital portfolio review focusing on artistic merit, business perspective, or both.

E-mail photos@ryanbrenizer.com to register and begin the subject with either “WORKSHOP DAY 1,” “WORKSHOP DAY 2″, or “WORKSHOP BOTH DAYS” depending on your interest.

The theme of my workshop — “WWMcGD?” — really comes back to the central theme of my life, which is managing thinly veiled chaos. If you simply want to get the best images possible in a portfolio, it’s usually good to carefully plan, be insanely meticulous, or just keep pushing the envelope that you fail spectacularly again and again until you succeed. But shooting for clients, especially as a wedding photographer, robs us of most of those tools. We find ourselves shooting portraits outside at noon on the summer solstice (Yes, I’ve been there); we sometimes are forced into terrible shooting locations, including a surprising amount of photos taken in parking lots, and you simply can’t afford to suck.

I just want to thank everyone for coming, again, despite short notice and a limited announcement (only on this blog). There’s something beyond my comprehension about someone coming from Norway just to see me prattle on … and finding out that he’s a relative local next to the guy that flew in from Australia.

I said I wanted this to be the best workshop ever, and I think it was. I loved the intimate feel of the smaller attendance cap, and will be doing that on all future full-day-plus workshops. I feel like I got to know everyone there, and could make sure everyone had hands-on time. I tell attendees that I’m happiest when people can take the things I’m showing and come up with things that surprise me, and in the free-shooting they did just that, knocking out some spectacular images. Thank you guys!

It’s picture time. A lot more went on than I have pictured here.

On Friday night, we studied night-time and darkness-related portrait techniques with Cameron:

On Saturday, I showed some of the applications and techniques of mixing continuous light and flash, as well as color temperatures of the lights. I was happy to be joined again by frequent model and friend Stephanie:

We went over some handy “work a hotel room” tips, such as some ways to modify window light to increase control, contrast, and make it generally more interesting:

Then we headed over to the most boring place I could possibly find in an otherwise fascinating location — a plain white corner too dirty and cluttered to do simple high key. What to do? Without Photoshop, I can’t make the spot look nice, but with the right subject and lighting, I can hopefully make you not care:

Before and after, then a flash composite.

I took everyone through how I would conduct an entire portrait session if I only had five minutes, trying to get as much variety as possible. I capped it with a “Brenizer method” bokeh pano, using the clutter on purpose to keep a sense of scale:

During some free shooting, I took Karen and Kamil to our mock hotel room, and the attendees set up some great scenarios building on what I’d done there with Stephanie.

The real fun happened when we went on the roof. A free tip: If you’re going to do something that might get you in trouble during a shoot, do it last.

Thanks so much again, to everyone who helped out and to the attendees. Without you, I’d have to post a bunch of pictures of an empty room.

(Only one light source used for this picture, even though it appears in the photo twice).

I have a big theory that drives my workshop instruction: When everything is working perfectly, when all the stars are aligned your way, that’s probably not when you wish “boy, I wish I had another person’s perspective on how to deal with this.” So we focus on how to work through bad situations, knowing of course that it’s also applicable to those (rare) times when things just work. This time, our spot was so fantastic that I had to look hard to find boring and bad locations … so we were probably the first shoot in this studio to head straight to the spare studio kitchen for a shoot. When all you have is a fridge and a blank wall, it comes down to posing and lighting.

Of course, a subject like Cameron doesn’t hurt.
—
Camera: Nikon D3s
Lens: Sigma 85mm f/1.4
Lighting: Litepanel MicroPro through a Lumiquest Softbox LTP

For the second time, mixed in with the previous clients and models I’d shot with before, I had a high school classmate join us as a workshop subject — this time the fetching Cameron. I really can’t help it that so many people from my tiny burg in the tundra seemed to scatter out and spread fabulousness. It was great to see her after … well … just a few years, and as you can see she did a great job bringing the old Hollywood vibe to our night-time shooting.
—
Lens: 35mm f/1.4
Camera: Nikon D3s
Lighting: Composite with the Litepanel MicroPro pulling double-duty.

My traveling roadshow workshop at the Dream Factory in Los Angeles is done, and I couldn’t be happier. I am amazed and honored that, even though I gave little notice and only mentioned the workshop on this blog, with no outside advertising, we had attendees come from all over the world — Norway, Panama, Canada, all sides of the U.S., and even a guy who flew back and forth from Australia just for the weekend. That’s just crazy, and crazy-awesome.

Also, it was a pleasure to reconnect with some of my favorite subjects, including Karen and Kamil, pictured above in a demonstration of high-speed flash sync’s power to obliterate the sun. (And with constant LA haze, it’s pretty easy to make the skyline look post-apocalyptic). I shot their wedding in Malibu just over a year ago, and it was a blast to spend time with them again, as well as the others who will be featured here soon.

Thanks so much to everyone who came and to those who helped out, including my own brother Doug.

Also, if you’ve attended a previous workshop, I’ve made a private Facebook group to network and share extra content, such as the pieces that make up “Brenizer method” or flash composite images, behind-the-scenes stuff, etc. Contact me if you’re a previous attendee and if not … there are more to come!
—
Lens: 35mm f/1.4
Camera: Nikon D3s
Lighting: Three SB-900s through a Lumiquest Softbox LTP

I’m leaving for Los Angeles tomorrow to begin on-the-ground preparations for this weekend’s workshop (which still has some spaces available!) and I’m getting more excited by the minute. Every time I go into a wedding, I say “I want this to be the best one I’ve ever photographed,” and I’m saying the same thing about this workshop. I want it to be the best one I’ve done yet, and I think it will be.

Why? Well, first, the people I have lined up to photograph are guaranteed awesome. I love that I can have a workshop halfway across the country, and still have wonderful clients who live nearby. And once again, even across the country, the models will be people I’ve worked with and know well. No random Model Mayhem-ers with their sky-high flake-out rates.

Also, the place we’re at — the Brewery Art Colony — is absolutely phenomenal. I’m excited just to shoot there, workshop or not.

Most importantly, though, I learn more about how I can get across the things I do, and what other photographers want to learn from me, every time I do one of these. And I keep learning about the power of intimacy. I’ve made the cap on this workshop small enough that it should be the smallest workshop yet, even though we’ll have the biggest space to shoot in. I have some people flying literally around the world to come to this; and I want to be sure that the workshop is small enough so that each person who comes can feel that I really got to know them, could take the time to address their specific needs, and also get some time to shoot in this incredible space. You can learn a lot from paying a few dollars and going to a photography lecture, but I want this to be a lot more.

There are a few spots left for the last-minute indecisive folks. Friday night is starting at 7 p.m. with mingling and getting to know each other, not crucial learning — so there’s no need for people in the LA area to have to miss work on Friday. E-mail ryanbrenizerworkshops@gmail.com to reserve a spot!

Please contact me if you need help with housing options (I know we have a lot of out-of-towners coming).

I’m really excited for my upcoming workshop March 18-19th in Los Angeles — for the price of putting on a workshop in Manhattan, you can get some AMAZING locations out there! I’ve put together an informational page that will be updated as we go along, and I hope to see lots of you there! I want to see some more local representation — here I am flying across the country to be closer to people, and still so many of the attendees are flying in from as far away as Australia!

(Not that Hollywood)

I’ve gotten a lot of requests to do workshops outside the NYC area, and I did a test seminar in New Orleans back in 2009, but I wanted to wait until I could be sure I could take this show on the road and do a great job with it.

March 18th and 19th are that time.

This workshop, “What Would MacGyver Do?” will take some of the best things I’ve learned in the shooting and business workshops I led in 2010, as well as all of the preparation work I did for my DWF lecture in January. We’ll be taking the kinds of real-world problems that wedding and portrait photographers deal with all the time — bad light, not enough time, bad locations, awkward subjects, and more — and working through them to get technically and emotionally compelling photographs. Recommended for people-shooters who can at least count upward in f-stops.

This is a night-and–day workshop, with the night of the 18th given to networking and discussions of the hows and whys of shooting professionally. I take great care to make sure that people can get benefits not only from me, but from lasting connections to other photographers with shared skills and interests, and it’s been great to see lasting friendships come out of previous workshops.

Cost is just $500 for registration before March 1, and $600 thereafter. E-mail ryanbrenizerworkshops@gmail.com to sign up or get more information.

Fun fact: This will be the first of my workshops planned by more than one Brenizer.

UPDATE: I should note that with my current schedule I won’t be doing many workshops this year. My current plans are one West Coast workshop, one East Coast workshop, and one in December in Asia. Going to be another busy year with lots of fantastic clients.

Once again, at the workshop I deliberately took people to terrible locations to show them how I would work through it. The key to making a nice, attractive negative space for Kelly to play in was using the off-camera lighting to kill the ambient light. Without it … well, the space doesn’t have quite the same effect, as you can see below:

Not everyone can make trying to stay warm look as good as Mae does.

I processed through all the photos from my last workshop just in time for my upcoming lecture at the DWF Convention in San Antonio. At the workshop the shooting scenarios were all about options to create attractive work in bad situations, such as, in this case, night-time. So we used light-painting to get the job done.

Lens: 24mm f/1.4
Camera: Nikon D3s
Lighting: Litepanel MicroPro
EXIF and GPS data

Then came the big show, a day-and-a-half-long workshop aimed squarely at photographers knee-deep in the business of wedding photography. This was a more talking-heavy workshop than some of my previous ones, since I wanted to share any and every business trick I’ve learned along the way to building a successful photography business — and I left nothing out. I don’t have any secrets — if you want to be a successful photographer, work hard, capitalize on whatever luck you have, and don’t stop working hard. That’s about it. If your business model is based on not letting your competition find out your secrets, then, in the Information Age, you might be on shaky ground.

Still, we did some shooting, because we’re photographers after all, and I wanted to show both how I work with clients, and some of the things I do to solve problems in photography. The first is how I stopped being a slave to the sun. If you only like shooting outdoor portraits at golden hour, then you’re going to run into some interesting problems on hectic wedding days — or maybe even cause them. Sometimes you’re going to be forced to shoot at noon, and sometimes the best decision will be to shoot in the dark.

Since it was a night-and-day workshop, we got to tackle both. First, night:

We did a number of different night tricks; this one was based on the idea that sometimes your best friend at night is as weak a light source as possible. To get the tonality I wanted from the background, I had my Litepanel Micropro, which was my key light, just about set to “OFF.”

Next, day:

Wait … day?

Yes, I wanted to show that you don’t have to be afraid of daylight, that a speedlight can easily conquer the sun if you use it right, and that you can have the choice to have nice, blue skies even in a backlit, bright, cloudless mid-day sky, like we had.

But I really like to drive home a point, so I thought “Why stop at blue? Let’s take this glaringly bright sky and make it black!” So I went to 11 — f/11, ISO 200, 1/8000th of a second. Obliterating the sky. No dodging here — other than a bit of a crop, this is right out-of-camera. And it only took two SB-900s to light.

Here’s the really geeky part. A few back-of-the-napkin calculations showed me that in the first photo, my exposure settings are 288,000 times as light-sensitive as in the second photo. With the right techniques, we really can conquer any situation, day or night. More important is that they’re still compelling photos, thanks mostly to my wonderful subjects, Mae and Kelly.

Who said mixing linear and logarithmic math couldn’t be cool. Am I right?

…

Well, I think it’s cool.

I’ve been talking so much about the full-day workshop on Oct. 12 and 13 that I haven’t really highlighted the separate Adorama talk on Monday. At the last talk, I saw a lot of interest about the process and potential of flash composites, so I want to devote an entire lecture to laying it out in a way that’s clear to understand, both in terms of how to put a composite together and some of the practical applications.

There’s nothing new to the idea of erasing your lighting equipment from a photo — the idea is almost as old as commercial photography itself. But that’s the beauty of it — so many of the looks that are in our visual vocabulary come from this process, and what I’ve tried to do is streamline it to make it really easy. I shoot well over a hundred jobs every year. I can’t do anything that requires a lengthy bout of mucking around in Photoshop. The photo above took three minutes to shoot (it was raining after all), and about three minutes to put together. I processed it over a few bites of dinner at the reception that same day. And it achieves an effect that would be quite tricky to do with independent lights — throwing up grid spots to light under their umbrellas is not something I’d like to do on a rainy day in Central Park.

No to mention all of the potential for supplementary lighting, such as the highlights on the walls here:

Again, three minutes to shoot. So for $35 and a couple hours of your time, you should walk away ready to do this yourself. Sign up here!

Years ago, when I entered this industry, I had already spent years as a photojournalist and a photographer for Columbia University, but there are a lot of things you have left to learn about how to translate that into a world of clients and of running a business and of the very specific skills required to do your best job on wedding days where it sometimes seems that everything is working against you, and you have absolutely no room for failure.

I like simplicity. I base my wedding packages on the simple question: “What would I want from my wedding photographer?” And so what I will be giving is exactly the workshop I wish I’d been able to attend years ago.

How to make your mark? How to stay passionate? How to make very particular clients happy? (Among other things, there will be a mock client meeting where you’ll see me handle every difficult question I’ve ever heard) How to run a business without running it into the ground, even if you’re the type of person who hyperventilates when you see a spreadsheet?

And we’ll be shooting, not just to take cool photos, but to solve the sorts of problems that are the common bane’s of a wedding photographer’s life. Bad weather (we’ll fake it if we have to), bad lighting, bad locations, tight timing, awkward subjects.

Let’s face it — a lot of people can take photos of a model on a tropical beach. You could make that look good if the camera went off by accident. But it’s the ability to solve problems that makes a wedding photographer consistently successful, and there are a lot of lessons I’ve learned along the way, mostly the hard way. By the end of a day and a half, I hope we’ll make them a bit easier.

Only $500, and six slots left (as I write this). E-mail ryanbrenizerworkshops@gmail.com for more information and to sign up.

I like pictures, so here’s one I made at the last workshop.

We still have some slots open for the October 12-13 workshop, given that I haven’t made the formal, full announcement yet. But I’ve been working on the syllabus like crazy in-between my even crazier shooting schedule, and I’m ridiculously excited.

You can read reviews of some previous workshops here. What makes this one different is that it is focused entirely on professional wedding photography, while my previous workshops were more generalized. Not only will we be working through location shoots, solving the sorts of problems we constantly deal with on wedding days, from bad backgrounds to bad light to lack of time, but there will also be an extended session on the business of running a photography business, with a focus on client relations. Most “bridezillas” are really just people with understandable concerns about a stressful time, and I’ve learned a lot of tricks along the way about how to make people as relaxed as possible.

Or, in other words, my photography business is booming so much I don’t even have the time to make a proper workshop flyer.

The best part? Even though the workshop is based in the swanky Garment District, it’s one of the few things left in Manhattan that are affordable. Registration is $500 before Sept. 15, and $600 thereafter (if any spots are still open). Register at ryanbrenizerworkshops@gmail.com

I also am giving a $35 talk on flash composites at Adorama on Oct. 11, and if you sign up for both, the Adorama talk will be reimbursed!

It’s been a crazy season so far, but client work isn’t all I’ve been cooking up — I’ve been bursting with ideas for a “workshop on sterioids” aimed squarely at wedding professionals, from the newly minted to long-time pros. And thanks to the help of Adorama, I’m putting together a stretch of instruction, networking, and fun where even the steroids are on steroids. Here’s the run-down:

On October 11, I will be giving a lecture at Adorama for a nominal fee, all about flash composites, like so:

This part of my June lecture was a big hit, but it takes more time to really teach the possibilities and methods of it right, so for two hours I will systematically take people through the steps so even relative Photoshop and lighting novices can try it for themselves and learn what sorts of new compositions open up to you when you don’t care about getting your equipment out of the shot. Adorama are great hosts, and their facility is top-notch for this type of lecture.

The full workshop will be October 12-13 (that’s a Tuesday and Wednesday — so you can come without missing weddings). You don’t have to attend the Adorama lecture to go to the workshop, and some of the content will be repeated, but if you do go to both, I will reimburse the cost of the Adorama lecture.

What, you ask, is a “workshop on steroids?” It’s a night and a day devoted to teaching my perspectives on and answers to the unique problems wedding photographers face — and not just in photography. I will guide you through topics like:

•Effective client meetings (with demonstration)
•Differentiating yourself in your market
•Keeping your passion alive
•Relationships with other vendors, including perspectives from fantastic wedding planners

I will also make sure that the attendees have the chance to show me and each other their work and share information so we can all network with each other as effectively as possible.

And, then, of course, there’s the photography. I’m not going to take you to fabulous places with professional models and perfect lighting and scenarios you could rarely recreate during a wedding. I’m going to show some of my perspectives on turning bad scenarios into good pictures. Bad background? Terrible lighting? Nervous and awkward subjects? Almost no time? These are the things we really deal with every weekend, and will be the main focus. I’m hoping the weather is miserable on the day of the workshop, but we can always pretend.

The cost of the lecture should be about $35. The cost of the night-and-day workshop is $500, and the number of attendees will be limited to a small group. Again, if you attend both, I will reimburse the cost of the Adorama lecture.

For more information and to sign up, e-mail me at ryanbrenizerworkshops@gmail.com.

Exciting news! I’ll be joining the ranks of well-known photographers like Cliff Mautner and Joe McNally as a lecturer in Adorama’s workshop series. On June 21, I’ll be giving a talk on a subject near and dear to my heart: “Creativity on the Fly, Turning Bad Shooting Situations into Great Wedding Photos.”

Weddings are, at their heart, barely controlled chaos, and it is the photographers who learn to do good work even when everything is lined up against them who will be successful in the long run. And if there’s one thing that a long history of shooting in New York City has taught me, it’s how to deal with adversity. We’ll be discussing how to think through shoots when the light, the location, and time is against you, and hopefully have some fun. Just $35 for a two-hour lecture, which is about as inexpensive as anything gets in Manhattan.

Seating is limited, so click here to read more and sign up!

Again, I want to say what an honor it is to have people come from across the country and the world to hear me prattle on for a day or two. Some people have asked me why I’ve started to do workshops when I have some rather well-documented gripes with the photography workshop industrial complex. First, it’s really, really fun. Second, it lets me try to address those problems by simply doing things the way I want. But lastly, the more I teach the more I realize that it is going to make me a much better photographer. I do so much client work that sometimes I don’t get the chance to step back and look at what I do from a different perspective. Teaching forces me to do that, to break down what I do and why I do it instead of just, you know, doing it. And by making me put this in some sort of sensible framework so people can reliably see whether a given workshop will be helpful for them or not, it has made me think about exactly the message I want to put out in the world, what things are valuable for me to teach.

Few things break my heart more than hearing people say “I wish you’d taken my wedding photos. We hate ours.” I think that wedding photography is important, and I want as many people as possible to love their photos, whether or not I took them. And I want as many people as possible to stay in love with the process of photography. And so, whenever I can find time within my packed photography schedule, I teach.

Here some of the workshoppers gather for the day. None of them seemed to need nearly as much coffee as I did to start at 9 a.m. Hmmm…

I always want to do these with people I’m comfortable with, so the day was filled with people who have been featured on this blog before, such as my friend Rochelle, who made a fabulous model. On the left she is looking cheeky for a Brenizer Method demonstration (I took the class through the whole process, from visualizing to stitching and output) and on the right we are mixing ambient and off-camera flash.

It was brisk, but much warmer than February, so we headed outside for some flash composites. This is three frames used for stark contrast with the ambient light.

And here is our “wedding party.” Flash composites are great for group shots, and here it wasn’t used as starkly, just to provide attractive light and better contrast. Again, I took the class through everything from pre-visualizing to the (very fast and easy) photoshop output.

Here I was doing a quick demonstration of Auto-FP flash, using 1/8000th of a second to bring the room ambient to blackness.

Then we moved on to couples, including my intern Isla and her husband Dan. I put them in the only part of the studio you would never want to photograph in — the kitchen we had just made dirty. To bring down the background, I stuck three flashes outside the window, mimicking bright daylight and getting interesting textures from the bars on the window.

Our next couple was the amazing Kindiya and Thomas, otherwise known as “The Couple on the Rocks.” Now we went to the ugliest part of the whole building, a nasty stairway where, Thomas noted, it looked like they were about to conduct a drug deal. Although, I said, it also looked like a place where a couple might actually make out. I don’t know anybody who spends a lot of time making out in front of gazebos. Off-camera flash and some movement to blur the shadows brought the effect here.

Here we used a very warm tungsten video light to cool the puke-green ambient into a nice turquoise. And you can see all the voyeurs in the class.

The sun came out and I showed the class how to kill it dead. f/22 wasn’t nearly dark enough for the effect I want, so we used the Sledgehammer of Light and Auto-FP to shoot at 1/8000th, f/6.3. That sky is straight out-of-camera. No HDR here.

Then we used the dramatic effect with flash compositing to light the couple from the left.

Then I wanted to show how to work when you had very, very little time, such as when you are holding an elevator. Yes, the “shaft of light” from the last post is an elevator shaft. The important thing here is pre-visualizing and then working quickly. We tossed three flashes in the reflective elevator at half power to turn it into a glowing room of white and positioned them right in the doorway. We also had a second, safer shot using video light inside the elevator.

We had a session of free shooting so everyone could work through some of the things they saw, and I took another Brenizer Method shot of Kindiya and Thomas, as well as showing the effects of studio lights (not shown).

Group shot! One of these days I’ll remember to do a group shot at the beginning, before many of the workshoppers leave.

Thanks so much everyone! This is probably the last weekend workshop I can host for a long time, but I’ll put together a weekday one aimed squarely at wedding photographers, covering business as well as wedding-specific issues, in the mid to late summer.

I was again honored to have a great bunch of photographers attend my workshop on Saturday, and everyone seemed to have a great time. The full wrap-up is coming later today, but first I want to see if any non-attendees can pick apart the lighting here. Look for clues.

UPDATE: The recap is up with the answer. Robert and Lance are pretty darned close, but no one got the wordplay.

The workshop is going really well, and, being the technophile I am, I’m using the lunch break to post a quick picture. Here we used flash composites to create a quick “wedding party” photo. If only more brides wore leopard print dresses like Rochelle.

Given that this is a blog devoted to my photography, generally I’m going to feature … my photography. But today I have a good excuse. Phillip Stark, owner of 2 Stop Brighter Studios where I conduct my NYC workshops, sent over some great shots of last time. He has a great space over there, and I thank him for all his help!

I am extremely excited for the workshop on Friday and Saturday. We were full to the level I wanted, but there are a couple spaces open now due to two last-minute personal emergencies, so contact me if you’re interested! We’ll be spending a lot of time talking about advanced techniques that can pull off good shots no matter the ambient lighting you have to work with. In addition to all the great things that we did in the February workshop, it will be a bit more intimate, and I promise the weather will be warmer this time. The reviews show happy attendees despite the freezing weather.

There’s a huge hoopla going on right now in the wedding industry about which workshops are rip-offs — 95 percent of you will have never heard of this debate, and you are lucky, as it’s pretty ugly. I don’t have anything to say of consequence, since the alleged scammers are people I’ve never heard of before. But someone exclaimed I was “giving it away!” by offering workshops at $350. Maybe. But I also know how much 10-week courses at the International Center for Photography cost, and they aren’t $30,000. I simply bring the same philosophy to my workshops that I do for my weddings: Price as low as supply and demand will allow me*, and hustle like crazy to do good work. As a long-term strategy of someone who wants to stay in this business for the next 40 or 50 years, and who wants to make sure as many people as possible have great wedding photos, it’s working pretty well.

I’m not alone in this idea. I don’t know any wedding photographer who knows lighting as well as Joe McNally — I mean, really, the guy has evenly lit up coliseum-sized telescopes while standing in a crane — and you might be amazed at the low prices of his workshops. I’m not a rock star, I just know some neat tricks and like to share them. Information wants to be free, I just don’t have quite that much time.

There is also some extremely exciting news to come on the workshop and lecture front, but I can’t tell you yet.

Onto the pictures:

*I should probably point out that this only works well if, by working hard, you are continually raising demand.

Our first workshop was a huge success (you can read reviews here), and so we’re going to get one more done before the season starts in earnest. This will be the last weekend workshop I’ll be able to offer for a loooooong time.

It would be great if life were always fabulous, if the light were always perfect, if everything happened according to your schedule, if your subjects were always naturally comfortable in front of the camera. But that’s not the world in which we live. So my workshops focus not just on tools that will let you create beautiful imagery, such as “the Brenizer Metho”d of bokeh panoramas, but how to make the most of less-than-perfect situations. What do you do when you want to create dramatic lighting, but it’s high noon, you have a giant wedding party, and one tiny little speedlight? What do you do when you want to create great portraits, but it’s pitch black out? What if the weather is horrible and you can’t go outside, and you’re left with no obviously interesting locations to shoot in?

These are the situations I and other photographers face all the time, and I’ll show you how I work through them, as well as showing you advanced tools for artistic expression like quick-and-easy flash composites, mixing strobe and continuous lighting, and basic flash techniques that guarantee perfect exposures every time.

But photography is more than just exposures. There will also be discussions of documentary style, how to make uncomfortable subjects comfortable, and how to further develop your own artistic style.

Lastly, these workshops are great opportunities for networking, and I want you to have as much fun as possible, so there will be a social mixer at the studio on Friday night (April 16) as well as the full-day workshop on Saturday (April 17), as well as official hotel accommodations for those who need it. Both the mixer and the workshop will be at the fantastic 2 Stops Brighter studio.

And, because I think some workshop prices are a bit nutty, all this is just $350.

To show interest or sign up, e-mail me here!

On February 5th and 6th, 35 avid and awesome photographers came to 2 Stops Brigher Studios to talk shop and learn about some of the crazy stuff I get up to as a photographer. I figured I couldn’t teach a workshop about how to be fabulous, since I’m just a pretty normal guy, or how to run a business, since the most important thing I know is to work with other people who know how to do that stuff, or selling actions and presets, since I don’t use them.

What I do know as a New York City photographer is how to make the best of situations that aren’t always in your favor, and I thought it might be useful for some people to get my perspective. Also, I’m always looking at photographic gear and saying “Is there anyway I can use this in a weird way that would make some pretty cool pictures?” and we spent most of the day talking about some of the things I’ve found that can give you some new tools for bad situations — things like the “Brenizer method” of bokeh panoramas, video lights and light-painting for low-light, using flash composites for dynamic shots on bright days, and more.

I had such a wonderful time, and so many people have been asking about it, that I am going to host another one soon! I’m thinking April. Watch this space.

There are going to be a lot of photos in the full write-up, so click below to read the rest!

The weekend started with me hosting a mini-convention for photographers of Flickr’s Starting a Wedding Photography Business group at my studio. It was cold, but a lot of fun, as we walked around NYC, and I showed them the NYC way of shooting gigs — work quickly before the security guards come and yell at you. In NYC, there are always security guards.

Here was a little fun we had when I was showing off video lights, and how I would work the ambient of a night-time scene:

Then I showed off a little light-painting before we all froze and headed back inside:

On Friday night, everyone was invited to a mixer at the studio. It was important to me that people see this as an important networking and social opportunity as well as a learning seminar, so I threw this in for free, and will be doing it at all future seminars. Then we all piled in for the workshop!

I knew I would spend most of the day talking about the “Hows” of photography, so I started off with perhaps a more important question: What are your “Whys?”

Here is my brand-new intern Isla, also an attendee, already hard at work on one of the models’ dresses:

We went into with a full demonstration of the “Brenizer method” of bokeh panoramas, because, well, I know a little something about it. I showed everything from pre-visualization to capture to the Photoshop process:

I gave a short demonstration of good techniques for bouncing flash properly. I took a bunch of bad bounce shots I won’t show here, but I also showed how to set up your cameras so you can quickly bounce the light from exactly where you want it to hit your subject:

Then, just to show that you can bounce flash in situations you might not expect, I took this one with the flash bounced off a black fleece jacket! Not art, just a proof-of-concept:

Next was an instructional seminar on flash composites. This is a technique commercial shooters have been using for decades, but I wanted to show them how to do it in five minutes, not five days. So first we set up Lydia alone:

15 seconds of photoshop. Next we set up a mock bridal party:

Four minutes to shoot, two minutes in Photoshop.

Then I challenged myself to get some shots in a horrible, boring situation, and walked the group through how I would handle it. You’ve seen one of these before:

Then we headed out for a bit of street shooting, but it was really cold! April’s seminar will be a bit warmer, I promise:

Still, the participants had fun and did yeoman’s work as light stands:

Thanks so much for coming everyone! We didn’t think to take a group shot until 10 or so people had left, but it was so great to have everyone there, and to see how many photographers wear black: