How I Learn Photographic Techniques/Santa Fe Workshops

[Kathy Rappaport]

In speaking with our dear Asher, he encouraged me to post and start a thread on my experience coming up this weekend. So I thought I would tell you more about my road to learning about Photography. I hope that you will share your learning experiences here. This is such a vast subject, I really believe we cannot stop learning or our creativity will stop. We must keep at it, if only trying to capture new images and learning from those images.

Having loved the backside of a camera for 35 years as an amateur and now as a new professional, I can't seem to get enough learning in. Maybe it's the age - I turned 50 last year and I want to develop my artistic side. I found a great way for me to learn is by lurking in the photo forums, reading books, talking with others, experimentation and trying new things and shooting as much as possible. But workshops, with the balance of classroom time, shooting time and fellowship of others wanting to learn the same things as I do, seem to be most helpful to me.

I started taking some beginning classes here and there locally in 2001-2002. (My High School Photography class with my friend's father's borrowed Yashica 35 mm I am not counting! - Black and White with Darkroom).

In 2003 I went to Santa Fe and took a workshop at The Santa Fe Workshops (www.santafeworkshops.com) - Beginning (Film) Photography with Sarah Martone. The class was a gift from a friend and what a great week I had - so much so, I grabbed my husband and found one there we could do together called Finding Your Photographic Voice with Carlan Tapp.

In 2004 I started on the digital road when the D20 came out. (The Canon G2 doesn’t really count to me). I've taken some workshops locally too - A Julia Dean Workshop of Studio Photography with Douglas Kirkland, one of Canon's Explorer's of Light just last fall, A few Photoshop classes via Samy's Camera. And Sarah Martone offered a 4 day class in San Francisco last summer on Street Portraits we went to. I love the idea of getting away and having total immersion in what I am doing. Sarah required us to have Photoshop CS2 so one more step to learning. No more film philosophy of “What Comes Out of the Camera is What You Get!”.

I leave on Sunday for a week of Portraits and Lighting on Location with Scott Pasfield. Being a California Girl, it's supposed to Snow in Santa Fe and I am hoping the road will be dry on the way from the airport. We don't do well driving in rain or snow! I will have the opportunity to meet another OFP member too. I did just find out that my hotel room will have only Dial Up so that will be interesting but there is wireless high speed in the hotel lobby. I will add some images as I can.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Kathy,

Thanks for keeping us informed! You go with a great blessing!

Asher

 

[Aaron Strasburg]

I hope the workshop is going well. Looks like some interesting weather today in Santa Fe. About 6pm I saw lightning in that direction, and from radar it looks like a rainstorm passed through about that time. Hope Kathy was prepared for rain, but otherwise it was a great day.

 

[Kathy Rappaport]

No, not rain

But SNOW! There is snow piled high on the sides of the road. We had a great lightening show at about 6 with the sunset followed by sleet/snow which didn't last but a few minutes. I bought a coat rated for 15 degrees, so I am toasty warm.

For the Workshop, today was our first day. We have many skill levels from a few professionals but far more beginners to lighting. Some did not know or have ever seen any studio lighting equipment and one photographer took beginning photography just last week. They hauled out all types of lighting and modifiers for us to look at and we did do some sample shots. So we will be dividing up into groups based on skill for instruction tomorrow as we go out. I learned alot about being able to look at a portrait to see the lighting and how to light our subjects. Tomorrow we're off to a Movie ranch with models.

Anyway, The hotel is shutting down the computer room. More later!

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Kathy,

Good luck on the course. As a challenge, can you get a snow scape of the railway station from the back to get the countryside too?

Anyway you probably don't have a minute to spare or the right bots, LOL!

Asher

 

[Aaron Strasburg]

Snow certainly makes things interesting. I didn't think it was cool enough for that, but snow's probably a lot more photogenic.

 

[Edward Bussa]

You guys make Santa Fe sound like "all that"!

I'm regretting blowing through the area years (decades?) ago. I did spend some time in Tao, just north of there...

KATHY, I think its great to hear about your experience. I'm eager to hear more. Thank you for committing to blogging it here...

 

[Kathy Rappaport]

I am back!

Well, I had a very interesting week and not only weather wise.

First I will remind you that this was my third workshop in Santa Fe. The two that I had taken before were from highly experienced teachers, Carlan Tapp and Sarah Meghan Lee. those classes were exceptional. This class was taught by Scott Pasfield and it was his first time teaching. The class was billed as for all skill levels of photographer. Scott taught it for those experienced in using lighting. My exposure to lighting was via only one workshop where the lights were all set up for us, so really NO experience. One of the students had taken Beginning Photography just the week before. We started at 8:30 every day, worked until 6-7ish and went to dinner. Two nights the 5 instructors had shows of their work. We went back to our hotel rooms and processed photos until we were ready for critique sessions the next morning. It was very intense and long. I barely had time to eat and less time to make calls to my office or to sightsee and socialize outside.

Sadly I will report that I was somewhat disappointed that the class was poorly organized and there was not much of a timeline followed. Scott showed his work and explained his lighting technique for the images. We only had one hour of shooting the first day. We were paired with other students the first day and were assigned monolights or studio strobes and light modifiers and other equipment available - beauty dishes, reflectors, ringlights, back drops, seamless and props. We'd never used this type of lighting and yet without much help, we did figure it out without much help. Two students did not finish the workshop. This was atypical to my prior workshops.

Three days we went on location shoots - to a Movie Ranch, an abandoned hospital and a ranch home with historical value - Los Luceros for the locals curiosity. Each day we had models or we used our fellow students for subjects. Great locations, some models fair and others incredible. We dressed and posed our models in our chosen spots within the locations, set up our kits and went to work.

The last day we were supposed to go find our own locations and arrange for our own models. My model did not show up, but, I planned on being in the studio. Most of the other students checked out light kits and went out to find locations. That was the most valuable day because there were 4 students in studio and we used almost every kind of piece of equipment available - softboxes of all sized, flags, grids, backdrops, props, pocketwizards (we each had one which was GREAT!). gels, beauty dishes and reflectors. We traded places being models and moved lights every which way. What an invaluable experience. The Studio Manager worked with us and it made the entire workshop worthwhile.

Overall, I will consider another workshop at the Santa Fe Workshops, but, I will take one of the workshops with a teacher who has proven experience. My purpose was to play with studio/location style lights and I did get to do that.

I posted some of my images in the Portrait lighting gallery ( too many to post here) to http://www.pbase.com/chatkat/portrait_class_in_santa_fe&page=all

 

[Aaron Strasburg]

Sorry to hear that your instructor wasn't up to the task. Since SF is so close I've considered taking a workshop with this group. I'll definitely be cautious about which instructor to choose.

I haven't had much chance to look through them, but it looks like you came away with some great images in spite of everything.