Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of shooting and teaching in a ridiculously ancient building in the middle of East London – The George Tavern organized by my awesome friends over at Train To Create.
Though it cost us an arm and a leg to rent out, I absolutely wanted to be able to teach my workshop in a unique and rich environment. This would not only make my job easier teaching (teehee) but would also allow the workshop attendees to have an amazing experience shooting in a location with designers and a beauty team they would normally not have access to. (That is: 3 makeup artists, 3 hair stylists, 3 designers and 10 models !!)
On top of the amazing team available to us, we had over 10,000 pounds worth of Elinchrom gear sponsored by The Flash Center which gave everyone the opportunity to have some professional gear to play with.
For those of you who are curious to get a feel of what the workshop was like, check out this awesome BTS video that Train to Create threw together:
And the images themselves:
ft. Designs by Blackmirror Design, MUA: Sonia Allen, Hair:Donna Graham, Models:Jeremy Colvard, Jen Brook, Jaime Rodney
ft. Designs by Tara Byakko, MUA: Scarlett Mcpherson Hair:Sabrina Yunusova Models: Fenia and Elena Tsikitikou
ft. Designs by Dead Lotus Couture,[Model: KaeKae, Hair: Hiro Hirata, MUA: Ashley Mclaughlin]Model: Jen Brook, Hair: Donna Graham, MUA: Sonia Allen], Model: Gemma Huh ,Hair: Donna Graham, MUA:Ashley Mclaughlin], Jeremy Colvard, Jaime Rodney, Apollo
And the concept sketches to accompany it.
On a personal note:
Teaching and managing such a large group of people was a challenging but extremely gratifying experience. It was amazing to see so many people from so many different backgrounds come together and collaborate so beautifully together. Though I have a lot of experience managing large shoots, it was the first time that I had tried to manage three photoshoots simultaneously while figuring out how to teach and mentor along the way. Despite the freezing weather, I was pleasantly surprised to see everyone enthusiastically tackle and overcome the challenges.
Though I was confident the teaching/shoot-yourself formula was going to be successful, there was no way to know if it would work until the end of the workshop.
I want to thank all the sponsors for their support of this project: Nik Software, LowePro, UEL Alumni Network , X-Rite Photo, theprintspace, The Flash centre, The Second Door and Train to Create for making this entire workshop possible.
I had the chance to go and check out the facilities of The Print Space who were gracious enough to make a couple prints from the workshop for me to see. As a more social-media oriented photographer, I’m not so much of a print dude so being able to choose a variety of different papers and seeing how they affected my image was a very exciting experience for me.
For example, I discovered that Hahnemuhle German Etching looked absolutely mindblowing in the image of Jen Brook looking up towards the light (first photo posted) … but that the Kodak Metallic gave an amazing shine to Nange & Taras designs. I also discovered the joy of seeing my photograph appear on a 1.5 meter long image. Too bad it wouldn’t fit on the plane with me 🙁
Anyways, enough about me. Take the time to check out the work of the workshop attendees 🙂
Photo by Girts Rutkovski
- Design: Tara Byakko
- Models: Nikija Spalina, Jaime Rodney, Jeremy Colvard
- Hair Stylists: Hiro Hirata (Nikija Spalina), Sabrina Yunusova (Jeremy Colvard)
Photo by Conrad Webb - Design: Black Mirror Design
- Models: Jen Brook, Elena Tsikitikoy, Fenia Tsikitikoy
- MUA: Sonia Allen (Jen Brook, Elena & Fenia Tsikitikoy)
- Hair: Sabrina Yunusova (Jen Brook, Elena Tsikitikoy )Donna Graham (Fenia Tsikitikoy)
Photo by Martin Ograbek - Design: Nange Magro Design
- Models: Gemma Huh, Apollo, Jaime Rodney, Jeremy Colvard
- Make Up: Ashley Mclaughlin (Gemma Huh, Jaime Rodney, Jeremy Colvard)
- Hair Stylists: Donna Graham (Gemma Huh), Hiro Hirata (Jaime Rodney, Jeremy Colvard), Sabrina Yunusova ( Apollo )
Photo by Adam Haywood - Design: Nange Magro Design
- Models: Juliette Coturel, Apollo
- Make up: Ashley Mclaughlin
- Hair Stylists: Hiro Hirata (Juliette Coturel, Apollo)
Photo by Richard Powazynski - Design: Nange Magro Design
- Models: Juliette Coturel, Jeremy Colvard
- Make up: Ashley Mclaughlin
- Hair Stylists: Hiro Hirata (Juliette Coturel, Jeremy Colvard)
Photo by Sven Uckermann - Design: Blackmirror Design
- Model: Jen Brook
- Make Up: Sonia Allen
- Hair Stylist: Donna Graham (Jen Brook)
