We finished up an excellent, sold-out 3-day Portrait Photographer’s workshop in London last month, and it was truly a remarkable experience. I’ve come to realize that it’s not just the teaching and photography I enjoy, but the opportunity to connect on a more meaningful level with those who attend my workshop. It really makes a difference to have that time together – and the one-on-one time with each individual – and for that, I’m grateful. Huge thanks to our fantastic models – we had a lovely time photographing you. All photographs were taken with the Nikon D4 and D800, and most of the lenses listed here: 
Our next (and final 3-day workshop of the year) is this September 16th-18th in our Durham, North Carolina studio. We max out at 15 participants, and we only have a few spots left. You can check out all the details of the workshop and register here! You can also see lots and lots and lots of what previous workshop participants have said about the workshop here, including feedback from all workshops we’ve done, which I’m happy to say has held steady a 100% ‘Would Recommend A Friend’ rating since our first workshop. And a big thanks to Fundy Software, who offered a partial scholarship to the London workshop. Michelle Szpak won that, and I loved hearing her feedback to them about this workshop in this post. Also some across-the-pond gratitude to Adorama, who shipped all the participants these fabulous Glow reflectors: 
Thanks to Nations Photo Lab, my favorite lab, who sent some gorgeous framed pieces with each photographer’s artwork to them (and offers this discount). We also got some substantial discount love from Animoto and a number of other wonderful retailers. The swag bag has been building and building. Grateful that my fabulous Studio Manager, Sarah, has been managing so many of the discount and swag bag gifts and much, much of the coordination of efforts on these workshops. It’s a whole lot to keep straight, and she’s been instrumental in keeping things humming! During the workshop, we like to photograph indoors, in tricky darker lighting, using additional light sources (we’ll be using studio lighting in our Durham workshop this September), as well as in a natural setting and a bit more of an urban setting. We break the shooting up to work on photographing fast-moving subjects, more extreme natural lighting, interaction with subjects, grouping, expressions – and lots more. There’s a lot of shooting during the three days – and quite a bit of variety in all that shooting. 
Once we get through a lot of the basics (and we go through the technicals again and again and again!) we can also play with more creative shooting – like this purposeful use of varied shutter speed to effect the feel of mood and energy: 
Thanks to very talented photographer Ana Pratas, who wrote this lovely post about not just the shooting but all the business and marketing components of this workshop, for supplying this fun, bottom-left, behind-the-scenes shot from the workshop, as well as a couple other fun ones in this post. Here we are mimicking a client’s home environment with Caroline, participant/impromptu model, complete with adorable family: 
Working with very dark interiors, to show what can be done with balancing your settings, using fill flash, and working with tripods and sharp reflectors. There’s a great deal you can do with very little light: 
And a huge kudos to our gorgeous model family, who were game for some rather unorthodox posing – love the coolness we were able to achieve from this angle, with some technical/angle shifting while shooting. 
As much as I’ve tried to do some justice to what this overall experience is, I still find that it’s just something to, well, experience. I feel truly lucky to know all who have – I’ve truly made a lot of new friends – and I look forward to those I’ll meet through this in the future. If you are interested in joining our last workshop of the year, you can register here : )
