While we were at the beginning of our session I noticed a nervous man standing next to what I assumed was his girlfriend.  He took one knee and my wedding photog spidey-sense was a-tingling.  I asked Mary if she minded if we walked over and asked if they got engaged and wanted a few pictures, which she was, of course, quite ok with  I swooped in, shot some images, handed them my card and told them to email me and they could have the shots, swooped out, and realized no names were exchanged.  Well, I tried.

Giving without the expectation of return, just because…  it’s a good thing.  Now back to work.

Tweet

The quest to find a niche and a specialty is one of self-discovery and patient expectation.  That’s the polite, artsy way of saying it seems to take forever and I don’t want to wait any longer.  Sometimes it takes a step or three back to “see the forest for the trees,” so that part of the plan for this summer.  Bottom line is that the imaginary discussion taking place during REM-sleep has actually provided some humorously perfect direction.

Also, if you need a good dermatologist in the Eugene area, Jay Park is excellent – and he gives good counsel, too.

Zack teaches a lighting workshop and has a DVD called the OneLight, which is focused on off-camera lighting (my favorite way to shoot).  You’ll work with speedlights, Pocket Wizards, softboxes, umbrellas, and a number of other light modifiers.  You will also do some math.  Sorry, it’s just part of the process   I’ve wanted to attend this workshop for years, and 2010 was my year, I suppose.  I chose DC, and aside from a monster $187 ticket for being a single-occupant driver on a freeway, not a LANE, mind you… an entire freeway (like I could possibly know anything about that, thanks  a lot officer Sensitivity of the VAPD), it was a great workshop.  I’m pretty comfortable with lights already, although I admit I rarely use speedlights, it’s usually my Alienbees, so it was nice to gain speedlight experience with the modifiers I already use.  The math aspect was one that I was specifically interested in.  I hate math.  To quote Will Ferrell’s George W. Bush, “math is very much a part of  the Axis of Evil.”  I think the officer who decided an Oregonian didn’t deserve a warning about a violation he couldn’t possibly know about is also in the Axis of Evil.

To explain why I wanted the math aspect, I’ll step back 4 years or so.  I love natural light, but back in the day I loved natural light partially because I was scared of flashes, strobes, umbrellas, and all of the off-camera wizardry.  I din’t understand it, so therefor I loved natural light   Now, I still love natural light to this day, however; I feared strobes.  I decided I didn’t like avoiding something because I was afraid of it, that’s a foolish rationale, so I bought a Canon 430EX and an Alienbee 400 with a standard shoot-though umbrella.  Major fail.  I didn’t get it and I didn’t do it well… so I set it all aside for “a while.”  Like over a year “a while.”

Then I found Zack’s work.  I saw a Flickr photo with the tag under it “Screw you all, I still love jump shots.”  I instantly loved the photo and the photographer.  It was now 2008 and I started paying a lot of attention to people with lights, Zack in particular.  Fresh, clean, easy to understand lighting.  I tried my hand at lighting again.  This time I fell in love and have been using them more and more frequently ever since.  All because I decided not to be afraid of something and was willing to make some atrociously bad images until I felt comfortable.

Fast forward to why I want the math.  I don’t want to think about how to light, I just want to do it… I want it to be as second nature as aperture, ISO, and shutter speed are.  That’s the “why” behind wanting the OneLight DVD and workshop experience.  This July I got both, and I am so thankful – bucket list item, for sure.  Zack, and his talented wife Meghan, put on a legit program, not forgetting Zack’s right hand Dan, and I highly recommend it.  I’m still digesting the math, as it is my weakness, so we’ll see if I ever get to the place where it is second nature.

I’ll get to some pictures from the weekend.  Thanks, Zack and Meg – you’re some of my favorite people.

Zack demonstrated the techniques, then we implemented them.  Pretty simple, huh?

Dan gets lazy, but Zack shows him how to do it right.  We got turned loose to do our own thing, these are some of the images I came up with.