Friday night, New York City.  The body is aching, the stomach is still full, the brain is shot.  Welcome to the final day of the 5-day workshop by Jay Maisel.  I have mixed feelings:  I'm tired, mentally overloaded, and homesick, yet feeling sad that this all-too-brief little world of 8 people is coming to a close.  We've come from all over the world to learn: Sydney, London, Vancouver, L.A., San Francisco, Boston, and Connecticut.  We come from different walks of life: a doctor, a couple of pro photographers, me, a mining engineer, a barrister, a retired librarian, and a salesforce efficiency analyst.  A fun point: all the men shoot Nikon, all the women Canon.

We've been eating well and varied, too, part of the reason for being here -- good food and drink, great company, and total photographic immersion.  Japanese, Italian, Greek, American, Jewish Deli, and Vietnamese to name a few.  "Good Food Poisoning", Joe McNally, one of the attendees, called it.  I feel I need to cleanse my system with some bread and water.

Why am I here?  Perhaps as a cleansing journey as well.  Many workshops show you how to do things, like work with lights, or to work with hard light, or how to pose people.  Few tackle the really hard question of what makes a good photo, or break things down into sterile rules.  I've been trying to figure that out recently, spending bits of time in topics related to human perception and gestalt, trying to get photos that can make people react.  Jay's workshop was very timely.

Jay's retired from commercial photography and is focusing his time on his personal projects and street photography now.  I have never been much for street photography, yet his workshop is all about street photography for the shooting exercises, so here is an opportunity to jump into the deep end.  So much of what I've seen is boring, voyeuristic captures with super long lenses of inane, uninteresting moments.  A quick grab of someone walking and talking on their phone just doesn't do it for me.  I'm dreading this, but I am approaching this with as open a mind as I can.  Empty vessel, empty vessel, I repeat to myself.  Jay sends us out into NYC alone, each person going his or her own way to find worthy photographic opportunities and to work them.

The light is tough.  Greyish overcast hangs over Manhattan for much of the time, only lifting one morning to provide glorious contrasty backlight.  When the skies finally open up with rain I'm happy as well with the new opportunities -- it seems that there are way more umbrellas here per capita, compared to Vancouver.  But as I know from weddings, it's about doing the best you can with what's available, and the overcast gives a soft light quality for portraits.  It's easy to get fooled by great light and forget about the point of the picture, just like glorious sunsets are easy to photograph, but so many of them are empty and pointless.  I do things I didn't consider before, like stalking worthy subjects up and down the block, waiting for them to be framed perfectly, or to do something interesting.  Or stake out a good spot for 15 minutes for an actor to walk onto my stage.  It's a blast!

Back at Jay's bank-residence-studio, we go into the boardroom for daily critiques and presentations.  Juan Jose quips upon our first invitation, "someone is going to be fired."  Nervous laughter.  It isn't that bad.  If there's a nervous feeling about the quality of any picture, it's probably warranted, and normally results in a bad critique.  I learn to be objective about my work, taking all emotion out of them, and I get better.  Who cares how much effort it was to take a shot if it's bad?  Even so, I feel a bit nervous even with stuff I like, and handing in the USB stick of images each day brings back memories of handing in a test in university.  Though tough on his critique, you know he just wants to make you a better photographer: "It's the sin, not the sinner", "If you're not your own severest critic, you're your own worst enemy".  These and many other Jay-isms will stay with me, as will the anecdotes from a life of photography.  Straight and to the point "Boring", "Doesn't work for me", "What's all this shit in the corners?  You're responsible for every square millimeter of your frame!"  Yet one can't help but love the guy who guides and nags us along our journey using colourful aphorisms and streams of f-bombs. 

As the days go on, it becomes easier, I become bolder about getting the shot, which includes a lot of waiting, running after the prey, and putting up with the dirty looks that people give when they see you.  My critiques get better too, thankfully.  I realize that street photography is very similar to wedding photography, namely opening myself up to the multitude of photo-worthy places and moments around me, anticipating them, setting up the camera, composing the frame, focusing, and capturing the moment.  I'm learning to let go, to truly have fun, and to take the chance to either succeed gloriously or fail gloriously.  Each day the pictures get better and the honest critique is such a refreshing change from the inane "that's pretty good", "nice" platitudes that are so often uttered in hopes of not quashing feelings regardless of the quality of pictures.

Jay brings a fresh, child-like enthusiasm for life, not just photography, and realizing this is where the workshop goes past how to take better pictures to touch on how to live a richer, happier life.  As we go through his work and ours, we start gaining a sense of what makes a photo interesting.  Jay distills it down to three things: light, colour, and gesture.  While light and colour are pretty self-explanatory, gesture is really what gives the image its finishing touch, its soul, its sense of movement.  As we start to incorporate one or more of all these elements in our photos, they get better and better.  Looking back just to the start of the workshop shows definitive improvement for everbody.  Photos we were proud of on Monday now seem mundane and embarrassing.  Our baseline for what constitutes a good photo are forever changed. 

Surprise guest speakers drop by Jay's workshop; apparently nobody has refused him.  This time around, we had Barbara Bordnick, Duane Michals, and Walter Iooss.  I hadn't previously had the pleasure of seeing Barbara's work in various fashion magazines, but she has some of the best flower pictures I've ever seen; Duane is a hilarious, stream-of-consciousness speaker; and Walter is a celebrated SI sports and swimsuit photographer credited with bringing Fuji film to the US among other things.  All have had successful commercial careers, but they are also just as interesting for their personal work that they shared with us.

This post would be incomplete without mentioning Jamie, Jay's assistant, who made everything painless, had everthing organized, from the posters we all got to take home, to hand-stamping our name cards.  How he does all he does yet keep calm is a mystery to me.  Both Jay and Jamie make everything easy, pleasurable, and fun.  The overall experience is amazing, from the food, to the ever-changing artwork for us to admire, to the gifts like camera straps (an Upstrap, no less), memory cards from Sandisk, posters, T-shirts, and books.

A trip to the upper floors of the bank reveal room after room of stuff.  One floor looks like his overflow storage area.  Rooms are stuffed old tools, coral, seashells, gears, ball bearings, marbles, and other bric-a-brac held onto simply because they are interesting.  Interspersed with these are some artistic works-in-progress: a tray containing electric toothbrushes topped with rubber eyeballs anyone?  If it weren't so darned organized, somehow cohesive, and uncluttered, it might be a trip into a rogue hoarder's home.  Rooms on other floors are set up like galleries, with Jay's work adorning the walls.  The visual senses are stimulated past overload.

Tonight, instead of going out, we had a wonderful dinner upstairs in Jay's residence on the 6th floor.  His wife Linda is a great cook and host and we're all welcomed like old friends.  We chill out and also get to meet Joe and Jamie's wonderful wives Annie and Jenny.  We also have a chance to go up onto the 7th floor roof and shoot the NY skyline with Joe's 600/4 lens.

All too soon it is over and we're back downstairs packing up and saying our final farewells.  I'm sure as I reflect over the next few days on this workshop it will very likely join my list of pivotal, once-in-a-lifetime experiences.  It is a substantial investment in time, no doubt, but one I'm happy to say is supremely worth it.  To the other attendees: you guys rock, thank you for being a wonderful part of it.

Hi to all SLSS 2009 grads! 

You kept me, Simon, and the parent volunteers extremely busy with the overwhelming popularity of the "cheesy" photo studio at the DAG.  Shooting, processing, and printing several hundred pictures really kept us on our toes!  We made it a huge priority to get photos in students' hands this year.  In the end, I think it was a great success judging from the tremendously creative pictures that resulted.  We had a lot of fun, hope that we've given you some memories to cherish, and we wish you all the best in the future!

I'll be posting further information here on this blog entry on how to order more in just a few days...let me catch up on my sleep first!  Stay tuned...

In the meantime, here are some of the fun selections from the studio last night:

Technical notes (for those that read this far):  The studio was set up as last year, with a Hensel Porty firing into an umbrella for a general main light and a second light for fill and modeling.  I shot the Nikon D3 tethered, which allowed for quicker shot selection.  Students had their session, previewed the resulting shots with me, picked their favourites, I adjusted cropping and exposure if needed, and printed the images right away.  An additional workstation was set up to handle the processing of the candid shots throughout the night coming from the Nikon D700, some of which were done with CLS remote off-camera flash.  Images were also exported for use on the main stage slideshow.  It takes a fair bit of technology to pull this off!

Here are a few pictures from a quick shoot with Taylor Stobbe, makeup artist and model; makeup was by Mimi Nakanishi.  Shot with the D3x and 85/1.4 with available light indoors and out (the last one supplemented with an SB-900 flash off-camera).

Red Hot Annie, Chicago-based burlesque dancer, dropped by Vancouver last week to participate in the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival.  She contacted me via Model Mayhem and we arranged a shoot at my studio in between her classes and performances.  The night before the shoot, we had a chance to meet at Whineos restaurant on Granville when she did a couple of acts with the Diamond Mine show -- a great show and atmosphere by the way, and performances every Wednesday night at 10.

One of the great things about doing a shoot is meeting cool people.  Not only does she perform, but also produces shows, does makeup for a living, and designs the occasional website.  And she photographs very nicely, has her own outfits, does her own makeup (of course), and is a gem to work with.  Photographer heaven!  Did I mention the red hair?

We didn't really have a specific bunch of things we needed, other than my wanting to try one shot I had been thinking about, so we just played it by ear (eye?), starting off with some headshots to warm up.  I'd also rented an Elinchrom octabank / Profoto Acute2 setup to try out.  First up was a beauty dish combo:

Some pinuppy work just with the giant Octa:

Annie with the Octa again, with an SB-800 on a stand and a stripbox to give her some rim lighting and backlight the red feathers:

And finally, one of the shots I had in my head:

We got a variety of different shots in only about 3-1/2 hours, switching from one costume and lighting setup to another, rapid-fire.  Lots of work, but we were both into it and having fun, and the results were definitely worthwhile.  You know you had a good shoot when you're pretty beat at the end of it!

Octabanks generate beautiful light regardless, but the Elinchrom is definitely the easiest to set up, folding up like a giant umbrella instead of being a giant softbox.  It'll definitely be worthwhile adding one to my stable of modifiers just for the convenience alone.  Boy, do you ever need a decent stand and sandbags with it, though, as it's a pretty unwieldy beast.  Elinchrom's stuff is really nice, but their bayonet attachment is a bit of a letdown.  The Profoto Acute2 1200R was a solid, lightweight, no-nonsense pack, made very convenient with the PocketWizard sync interface.  Definitely worth considering as my movable studio setup, even though my investment so far has been in Hensel Porty gear.

Annie, I hope you'll be back in town again.  Otherwise, you've given me a great reason to return to Chicago one of these days (I spent many months in Bloomington, IL in my Microsoft days)!

So Jason contacts me through Facebook and asks if I'm interested in shooting some stuff for his music website or album cover.  Something gloomy, introspective, angst-filled, maybe black and white.  Sure, why not?  We'll start in the evening, use the studio as a homebase but will mainly shoot on location guerilla-style, jumping out of the truck when we see something good, I suggest.  Somewhere he slips "Pig's head mask" and "old accordion" into the conversation.  Sure, why not?  Oh yeah, funny timing with the swine flu pandemic.

His girlfriend Melissa accompanies us and does an awesome job as a cheerleader and VAL (voice-activated lightstand).  I have this idea in my head to try, so we go down to the local train tracks and shoot away with the Hensels and giant softbox.  The wind whips up and drops of rain start to fall.  A little old lady walks by with her dog, which seems a little agitated, but she's totally cool about it and talks to us for a while.  The bulbous front element on the 14-24 lens attracts rain drops and the softbox tips over in the wind, but we persevere nonetheless on and under the railway bridge, where Jason seems a little troll-like.  He does very well to emote through the mask using body language, and I do my bit to work the lighting and shooting angles to match the mood.

We head into town and the skies open up into a miserable downpour.  I spot an abandoned TV in an alley and it looks quite interesting in the light.  I move the truck to aim the headlights properly.  Not bad.  A few snaps from behind the dash are pretty good, but we need more.  The SU-800 remote goes on the D3, SB-900 flash with CTO gel goes into Melissa's hands, Jason starts wrestling with the TV...yes!  A few frames later we're soaked and the D3's soaked.  But hey, it's a Nikon, and I don't worry about it.  Make a mental note to pop the TV in the back of the truck to replace the one at home, but conveniently forget to do so.

Over to a phone booth on Broadway that we spotted on our way in.  We get more frames of the Pigman with the same off-camera setup.  At least the rain's easing up a bit so we can take a bit more time.

The soggy crew arrive at the nice, dry studio at last.  Grab the black seamless, Porty in a softbox and a couple of SB-800 kickers.  The Pigman regales us with a polka just to round the evening out.

We part ways and I get back home to start processing.  I love the multiple challenges in the session, and I'm very happy with the images we got.  To my relief, Pigman doesn't permeate my dreams that night.  Thankfully in a few days I get to shoot with Red Hot Annie, burlesque dancer from Chicago, to clear my mind.  I wonder if she might be cool with wearing a pig's head.