Right up my Alley

Nathan, Glynn and me hamming it up for the group last night...

Last night, Glynn, Nathan and I ran another Summer Series workshop. It was a Laneways Shoot in the heart of Melbourne city. It was fabulous fun, and the variety of images that both we and the group produced is quite remarkable. If you put your mind and heart into a shoot and then add a mix of students and photographers, models and light you can come up with dozens of combinations and styles of images that at first would be difficult to imagine. That has to be one of the reasons I love photography. Its ability to create something so ethereal from the most ordinary circumstances means never finding yourself with nothing to create. The key is having an understanding of light, exposure and your camera. That, I suppose is where we come in. Our workshops, combined with my digital photography tutorials website, The Five Minute Photographer, grant me an opportunity to do something I love doing very much - enabling photographers to grow in this very process - one that has brought so much adventure, joy and satisfaction to my life.

The evening started with a small disaster as one of our booked models sent me a text saying that she had accidentally double booked. Hey, I can't be too hard on her. I have been known to do the same thing myself over the years. But, our lives were saved when one of Nathan's friends, Richard, was hauled into the city by his lovely girlfriend, Rhiannon. Richard modeled for us all night, posing for the group and holding his pose like a real trooper. For someone who as never done this before, he was a real trooper. Rhiannon got shot as well! She is a very photogenic young lady, as you can see in this portrait, above. We were also ably fitted out with another regular model for our Five Minute Photographer and Creative Photo Workshops shoots, Caroline Tra.

Last night we helped our customers to establish a variety of photographs using both the available light and flash, and mixing the two successfully with different ratios. The great thing about working with Glynn is that we are so different in our approach. If we saw photographs the same way, our customers would not have the advantage of our different perspectives and vision. Glynn's photography is very different to mine and I admire his work very much. He says the same about mine. Our ability to hand each other the reins for the benefit of our customers is unique and our teamwork is something to see, I believe. We are both men who naturally take the lead and yet are more than happy to hand it over to the other person at any moment. Because of this I believe that our customers get a very special experience. I suppose that what I am saying is that together we form something that is greater than the sum of our parts.

Add to this mix, my son Nathan and the prettiest member of our team, Natasha Humble. Nathan's perspective is young and fresh because of his youth. His photography astounds me sometimes. Traveling with him through India reminded me of just how amazing his vision is. Natasha's take on photography is also fresh because of her newly discovered love of light and the camera. Her experience as a model for our workshops and her love and innate understanding of photography gives her a unique advantage as a tutor for our team. As a result, I think this team is going to achieve some wonderful things.

Watch this space...