Cooler Waters

     There is nothing like a warm welcome back into one's home state. It's been over 100F each day this past week with mid to upper 90s expected for next week. California must really love me!  To keep things cool, I dwell upon memories of cool times along a lovely Oregon beach.  Can you tell which one?

      

In the Interim: a trip to the beach for work

     I had to take care of some business administrative matters this past weekend. Fortunately, it all happened near the beach. So, of course, we did some work at the beach.  I promise that Kate's family portrait session will come up soon. Thank you for your patience!

A little chromatic aberration in my lens added some color to the water...

Until then, here are some pictures I am working through....

Second, the Picture Taking

     Continuing on from yesterday's post on the Soul Shooting workshop I attended this weekend, I will now share the pictures I took as part of the 3 assignments I was given.  

1st Assignment:  Portraiture

The first assignment was to establish a rapport and take portrait pictures of whomever we were partnered with.  I was paired with Sally, a graphic arts designer and photographer.  Within minutes of meeting, we were shedding tears over my beloved dog Buster who had died last year.   It was evident that she too shared a conviction and love for dogs as Man's very faithful companion.  She has a dog named Dudley, which rhymes with my present dog's name Buckley.  How cute is that?  She has lived in the far flung places of this country from New York to Florida to out here in California.  Her taste in food is just as adventurous with a particular preference for Thai food, just like me :-).  I look forward to hanging out with her again this summer!

Some notes on my portraiture session:  

I love Sally's eyes.  I hope that the pictures were able to bring that out.  My only regret is that I didn't pull back to set her in the context of the beach, like of her in front of the beach house or the beach itself.     A photo-session should include tight and wide perspectives to do justice to the story of the portrait session itself and most importantly to the subject, as a person in history and place and time.  I hope to remember that next time.  

2nd Assignment: Family 

Kristianne is a fine arts/ lifestyle photographer.  She brought her family and allowed all of us to follow our teachers (Kellie, Molly, Rosina and Sarah) as they took photographs of her family at the beach.  I loved the energy of the session: the waves crashing, children running and surfing, mom and dad following along.  I wanted to capture the connection in this family, especially between Kristianne and her daughter, as they were the only ones on the sand (and I confess I was afraid to get wet following her husband and son--I needed to follow Kellie's example on that one!).  Also, I wanted to capture the exuberance of the daughter as she frolicked on the sand.  

Kellie was undaunted by the waves and the cool temperatures.  Way to go, Kellie!

3rd Assignment:  A newlywed couple.

I regret that I wasn't there to meet with this lovely husband and wife when it was time to get to know them personally.  I had just finished my time with Kellie and Molly and went to switch groups to follow this husband and wife.  Rosina and Sarah were already in the middle of their photo-session so no introductions were made.  With young lovebirds, it is so easy to capture the connection.  Body language is so good at giving proof of the deep affection and fidelity between them.  This couple made it easy for me.  The only thing I regret is that I should have done more up-close shots, the opposite problem I had with my first assignment.  I need to remind myself of these things when I get caught up in a photo-session.

So thankful for the opportunity I had to participate in this workshop.  The Soul Shooting Workshop will last for a year as we will be receiving monthly assignments on photography that will help evince the personality and story from within us and bring it into the practice of our craft as photographers.  I look forward to a year of growth and challenges.  Thanks once again to Kellie, Molly, Rosina and Sarah!

First, the Workshop

     I discovered Sarah Robertson of Image Bearers Photography through a Facebook newsfeed 2 years ago.  She had taken the wedding photos of my husband's classmates.  I was simply floored and deeply moved by the quality of her artistry, the depth of emotion, the unique composition and  the varying degrees of energy in every one of the pictures she took.  I asked my husband if we could hire her for our adoption pictures.  Since we would have no pregnancy pictures of our baby, we decided that this would be our way of celebrating his/her birth (we hadn't known what we were getting yet). The long and short of it being that she took our pictures and preserved our first meeting in a very moving and breath-taking way.  I will never forget the first moment I met my son nor the feelings I felt because of her work.  I always tear up with images of those pictures in my head.  Thank you, Sarah!

     Fast forward to a year later and I purchase a new DSLR.  I have always wanted to explore photography, especially photojournalistic photography as Sarah does.  So I started this blog.  I have taken as many photos as I can.  I am following the whims and meanderings of my heart to capture life around me.  I am fine-tuning my philosophy on portraiture, architecture, nature and photojournalism.  These are hefty goals to say the least and a life-long journey, to be sure.  But the goal is that I continue to grow and evolve as a photographer.

     Sarah with her colleagues Rosina, Kellie and Molly decided to help other new photographers like me to develop our own personal vision and art through a workshop called Soul Shooting.  It is simply learning to shoot in a way that reflects the dynamic of your soul and that of your subject.  It is capturing life in a way that reflects your past, present and future as a photographer and not as a carbon copy of other photographers.  It is learning to craft your soul into the body of your photographic work.

     The workshop consisted of personal exercises, answering questions, an exercise in developing a rapport by taking portrait shots of one another, the teachers' critique of everyone's personal photographic work and then an actual photoshoot of a family and a couple, all under the guidance of these 4 fantastic photographers.  In this post are the moments I captured of the workshop.  The next shall be of my classmate and new friend, Sally, the family and a couple.

We all gathered around the fireplace.

We wrote about ourselves, trying to take a journey into our past, present and future.

Then we prepared for our photoshoot of the family and couple.  Molly and Kellie started indoors taking photos of the family.

 The family wanted to go outside to the beach, so we followed them.  Kellie was so courageous in braving the waves!

 

 

 

Rosina and Sarah started outside taking photos of the couple seen above.  Do you see Kellie taking pics on the bottom left?

We then moved to them as Rosina and Sarah took pictures of this couple and talked about what they were doing.

We then returned to the beach house to re-group. 

Our teachers then critiqued our body of work.  In this shot is my friend Sally responding to Rosina and Sarah.

The beach was an amazing place to host the workshop.  It was so easy to feel relaxed and absorb everything that was being taught and done.  The only painful thing had happened before the workshop, when it took me 1 hour and 15 minutes to reach the beach and another 20 minutes to find parking.  Ouch.  Yikes. 

But once you see that beach, hear the waves and slow down to the rhythm of that sunset, Southern CA traffic and parking can be forgiven!