"To Teach is to Learn Twice" ~ Joseph Joubert

I have always loved to teach. At age 7 I asked my parents to install a real blackboard in my room. It was huge and there was chalk everywhere. I would come home from school and then spend the whole afternoon teaching my mom whatever I had learned that day in school. Have I mentioned I love my mom? In high-school I was a private tutor for Junior High Students. In college I volunteered in the Math tutoring center. And after college, as a dietitian, even though I had a job at the hospital that I loved and it kept me super busy, I still made sure to get a job as a nutrition instructor in the evenings. I love to teach.

For a while now I have had a few friends and clients ask me to put together a class to teach them how to use their "fancy" DSLR cameras to its full potential. I thought it would be fun since I love to teach, but I didn't give it too much more thought beyond that. Until, a past co-worker of mine emailed me and said I needed to put something together fast! Her brother's wedding was only 3 weeks away and she wanted to put her camera to use and not be frustrated with the results.
Well... I guess I could put something together... How about a "Fancy Camera Workshop"?
I wasn't sure if anyone else would show up, but they did and it was super fun!
We spent the whole morning talking about how to properly expose images using the manual setting and discussed some of the many different compositional elements used in photography. We had lunch and then headed out for some hands-on practice with our model, Luisa. I asked everyone to shoot all of their images on manual and to pick at least 3 different compositional elements to work on.
When we got back inside we talked about post processing and then shared our images and had a fun group critique.
I didn't shoot much while we were out but here are some of my images (and my own homework):

Finding Patterns/Repetition:

Changing focal length (and I guess I cheated a little and changed my perspective a tiny bit):



Something unexpected:

Panning:
Foreground/Framing:

Wide-angle lens distortion:
Shadows:
Sun flare:
Changing perspective (from the photo above):
Here are Erin, Monika and Alicja practicing getting different perspectives of the same subject. I was cracking up when I saw this. By the way, Luisa is wearing shorts under her skirt :)
And here's a very happy me with my very pretty daughter:
A huge thank you to everyone who came. You are all amazing! I had so much fun and learned so much myself. I know I just started in my journey of being a professional photographer not too long ago and I have such a long ways to become the photographer I want to be. However, I want to make sure I fully enjoy every step of the way there and I hope that I get to continue to share what I know with anyone who wants to learn.
And while I am on the topic of teachers I would like to send a huge and special thank you to my very first photography teacher and major source of inspiration, Roy Pope and to Jennifer Bowen for being the first photographer who gave me an opportunity to see first hand what it was like to be a wedding photographer and to fall in love with it . I am forever grateful to you two. Thank you.

Lee Ann (a.k.a LaFrizz)

Where do I begin? Lee Ann is such an impressive woman. She is so elegant and classy but at the same time completely down to earth and incredibly funny! It's a rare combo but she really is all that! I also have to say that I wish I could steal Lee Ann's accent. I just love to hear her talking!

And a big bonus? Lee Ann used to live in Charleston and therefore was an amazing tour guide for all of us.

Lee Ann, you are amazing and I can't thank you enough for waking up at 4 am (with a big smile on your face) to take us to the airport when our taxi didn't show up. Thank you, thank you, thank you! You are amazing.

South Carolina - AKC Day Three

We decided to start our last day on the beach. Unfortunately Kara had already left, Lee Ann had an appointment that morning and Amelia was still sleeping, but we still had a lot of fun.
A group shot on self-timer, point and shoot camera, all images are straight out of camera:
We were pretty determined to get a jumping shot on the self-timer. Here are a few of our attempts:


After many failed attempts and a lot of laughter, we moved on to other ideas. Here's our America's Next Top Model pose:
And in honor of Lee Ann who is a yoga instructor:

We didn't just take silly pictures at the beach. We also tried skim surfing. Two words: Not easy.
Every time I jumped on the board it went straight down and got stuck on the sand. Yes we have video of it and it's absolutely hilarious.
Here we are with "our" boards. Can you see Trina's bleeding elbow? Like I said, not an easy sport.
Earlier in the week we realized that all the blonde photographers there had Nikon cameras and all the brunettes had Canons. 4 Nikons and 4 Canons. Weird coincidence that we thought we should have fun with. Here are some Nikon vs Canon pictures that we took right before we took Sam to the airport:

By the way, Canon wins.

Here we are at the airport saying by to Sam with our "secret" hand-shake. We are such big dorks.
Trina took these pictures:
After the airport we had lunch at Poe's Tavern. I love places like this:
Me, Amelia and Lisette. Photo by Shea.

After lunch, we stopped by this really fun antique store. Shea scored some vintage chairs and the rest of us scored some fun pictures of each other:

Absolutely stunning:

I got a ton of pictures of Lee Ann while we were there so I'll just make that a separate post.
Girls, thank you so much for a fabulous week. I learned a lot and I feel really blessed to have met all of you. Looking forward to the next one!

South Carolina - AKC Day Two

As you can see, the next morning we had an early business meeting to discuss finances, studio management and client relations:
After the meeting we went downtown Charleston again for a more formal photoshoot of each other. It was raining when we first got there so we spent some time (and some money) inside of this store:Some more snapshots from Joanna's point and shoot camera:
When it stopped raining, we went searching for some fun shooting locations:
Joanna is so beautiful! She's getting married next year and we all want to be her photographer. Can't you just see what a beautiful bride she's going to be!

Lee Ann got these photos of us shooting Shea:

Did you get something good JoJo? Funny story about Joanna. I met her earlier this year during a dinner at WPPI. We sat next to each other and clicked right away. She then told me she would be interested in becoming a part of Alpha Kappa Camera. A few months later, she came to Phoenix for Melissa Jill's workshop and we got in touch via facebook. I picked her up at the airport the day before the workshop which happened to be mother's day. She ended up spending that whole day with me and my whole family. So, basically, she's practically family to me :)

Trina working it again:
I had to have some touristy Charleston pics. This one is by Trina:

And this one by Lisette. By the way, Joanna and I did not coordinate on purpose.

I love it that Lisette captured this photo of me photographing Kara:
And here's what I got. Gorgeous.
My shootsac's 137th use: Carry Lisette's shoes.
(Photo by Lisette)

Amelia and I tried to recreate our Ireland pose for Lisette. We couldn't quite remember it but we gave it our best:

I went searching on Melissa's blog today and found this:

I couldn't end this post without a huge thank you to Shea who basically was our stylist for the day. Not only providing tips and touch -ups but also most of the clothes we all wore. You are awesome, girl!
(Photo by Lisette)