Learn from 6 photographers in 3 days!Learn from 6 photographers in just 3 days! Who am I kidding I learned from so many more than just 6 photographers... One of the first things that I did when I started my business seven years ago was to interview experienced photographers. The one thing that I heard again and again was to join the PPA; Professional Photographers of America. Having a background in education, I knew that continuing education was important but had no idea how to go about finding it for my photography business…enter the PPA. I joined the closest chapter to where I lived at the time ( which happened to be an hour and a half away) and it was one of the best decisions that I made for my business and myself. Through that experience I have made countless friends and continued to learn and grow as a person and as a photographer. Recently I attended the Focus NY Convention hosted by the PPSNYS (Professional Photographers of New York) in Buffalo New York. What a great convention! I had the opportunity to learn from experienced photographers, network with friends and have a great time. It was a fantastic weekend and here are a few of the highlights. I started the convention off with a newborn posing workshop with Stephanie Jane Portraits. We were fortunate enough to have a baby model to work with. I got some great tips on how to calm new parents and how to wrap babies in cute little bundles for their photos. Saturday I had a chance to work with the incredible New York City wedding photographer Will Cadena. We went out to Silo city to photograph models. Some of my biggest takeaways were to look for the negative space in a scene and put your model there, to use my lighting more dramatically and to get the shot and keep moving. I also loved how he showed us some tips and tricks when doing walking poses to add move movement and reality to the image. Will’s style has inspired me to give my clients something even more edgy and unique. And sometimes you learn something incredible when you least expect it. I decided to take a few classes from Don Komarechka even though macro photography is not really my specialty. WOW. His work is mind blowing! I absolutely loved learning from Don. Not only was he very organized and a great speaker he was really fun to listen to. I strongly recommend his workshops. I learned all sorts of new techniques like focus stacking, star trails and tips on macro. I can’t wait to try his techniques someday. On Sunday we got a trifecta of three amazing photographers teaching on location! Tony Corbell, Dana Norlund and Rick Freedman did a joint model session at Silo City. Each photographer showed different lighting techniques and how to pose models. I loved Tony’s tip about not shooting the light into the models chest but instead turning their chest away and bring their face back toward the light. (I am excited to use that now.) And Dana gave us some great tips on how to use constant lights in the studio the day prior. Then Rick showed us how to use colored gels and speed lights to create a colorful and interesting background in an otherwise blank space. These inspirational photographers had so much knowledge to share I can't even begin to write it all down. But I am grateful for the experience and all of the little tips and tricks that I learned from the workshop. A special thank you to our PPSNY president Pat Luke and all of the others who helped organize Focus NY. And congratulations to Monroe Payne as he takes on the roll of the next president. And a special thanks to all of my photography family (PPSCNY, PPSNNY, and Greater Rochester) for the good times and learning together. I can't wait until the next one. Miss you all!
Join PPA today!
Shout Outs to our great educators! Stephanie Jane Portraits http://www.stephaniejaneportraits.com/ Will Cadena http://www.willcadena.com/ Tony Corbell https://www.tonycorbell.com/ Dana Nordlund http://dananordlund.com/ Rick Freedman http://www.rickfriedman.com/ Don Komarechka http://www.donkom.ca/ Monreo Payne http://www.monroepaynephotography.com/ Pat Luke https://www.lukephotography.com/
Thank you Melissa and Dani for some cell phone photo of the fun times. http://www.sarissamelissaphotography.com/
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Comments
Glad you enjoyed all the incredible speakers and the shootouts that happened that weekend while attending the FocusNY convention. That's why I really wanted to team up the FocusNY convention with the CanAm Expo this year, because we've been unable to get that many big-name speakers for awhile. The CanAm Expo, because they are 4x-5x bigger than we are, scheduled all the speakers, and we were able to take advantage of that and have a large convention, access to internationally successful photographer/speakers, and see a large trade show.
When our conventions attracted 400 people, we were able to have big events like that, but unfortunately, because of the times and the dwindling numbers of members, we have a difficult time attracting the speakers and vendors that we used to be able to. We work twice as hard doing it, but sometimes to no avail.
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