Notes from the Field

(Editors note: I have been so busy this post is a bit late, but I don’t think you would hold it against me.)

So day 4 in the Paso Robles Workshops has wrapped up and the students are working on their images for the critic for the next day. Just when you think the locations and the models can’t get any better, Syl pulls day 4 out of the hat and the students, myself, and Joe were very impressed.

The first part of the day began as always, with a critique of the previous days work. I haven’t really talk much about the process, but each student brings in 5-10 images from their work from the day before. Their work is presented in front of class and Joe’s gives his thoughts and opinions, as well as the students. This is not really a time to shine, as much as it is a time to work through problems and talk about successes. Joe encourages the students to bring in failures as much as the great images that they are shooting. When I took my first workshop from Joe, I didn’t really understand the logic behind showing the failed images, but now I do. There is so much more to learn by what went wrong than what went right. Even though I didn’t get to shoot that much, because I am working, I found that I may have learned more than if I was in the workshop myself.

After the morning critique, daily demo, and lunch, we hit the road to travel to our first location of the day. One of the best things about the Paso Robles Workshops is how close everything is to the studio location. I have taken workshops in the past and spent far too long in a car driving to a location.

The first location was the Eberle Winery just outside of Paso Robles, no more than a few miles away. The fine people of Eberle let our students into the wine caves of the winery. There are just not enough words to describe how cool it was to be in these caves. Such great mood, texture and shape to the caves. The smell of the wine is not half bad either. Right off the bat, you can see the students really working their skills that they have learned the in the previous days. Many have a clear vision of what they want to do and are much quicker to catch mistakes as they happen.

I can’t thank the Eberle winery enough for letting our group in. I know it meant so much to both the students and Syl. I also can’t get over how easy going the winery was about having students “running” up and down the caves, making pictures.

Rather than stay at the same location, like we had the previous two days. Syl kept the winery theme going, but moved the group to a different location, the Cass winery. It just so happened that one of our models, Krista Cass, is the daughter of the owners of the winery. This time we setup outside, which presented a whole different group of problems for the students.

The sun was pretty high in the sky, giving you less than desirable light. But as Joe has pointed out he entire workshop, more times than not, you have to shoot in these types of situations.

While students are grabbing gear, and working with models over wardrobe, I grabed my 4 Canon speedlights and constructed what later would be called the “Trident of Light”. Gregg, one of the students, makes these plates that let’s you connect more than one speedlight on a stand at a time. Using this little plate, I put three speedlights up and went to work with High Speed Sync, something I have been using for the last year or so.

Once the sun started to get lower in the sky, the students started to really click off some great frames and Joe did a demo with the new Lastolite TriFlash umbrella adaptor. The TriFlash allows you to attach three speedlights to a single umbrella. Now of course the first thing in you mind is, why would you want to do this. Well, the answer is pretty simple, better quality of light. With three lights firing, you get more of a wrap of light and he results are noticeable.

The mighty TriFlash

That is me on the right holding down the TriFlash.

I was even able to shoot a few frames of a few of the models. Bree was more than kind enough to stand in from of my speedlights while I shot a few frames. I tried a bit of the High Speed Sync, and while I couldn’t get the background to go dark, I did get a nice shot of Bree. She is one of those models that you love to work with because she is full of energy and can help you make a great image.

Bree in her pink hoodie. She was cold.

Next up was Arian, who had been a hit the entire workshop. His energy and open mind to any idea was a huge hit among the students. Every time I looked around, Arian was jumping off walls, out of trees, posing with his Wolverine claws, or just looking like a lord of the manor with his hat and cane. I was able to grab a few shots of Arian as the sun set.

Arian

(Small side note, links to model’s portfolio pages may lead you to naked like images, please browse at your own risk.)

The Cass winery was so generous to let us on the grounds and play in the vines. I just can’t thank them enough for the use of the grounds and their time.

It was great but sad day as I had to hit the road the next morning, on my way to shoot my first wedding. I had a great final dinner with Joe and Syl, hit the bed and then hit the road.

I am going to do a wrap up on the workshops in the next few days, so I will save my conclusions until then.

M.D.