The Pool Shoot Workshop

Alina - © Copyright 2010 by William Beem

Even though this workshop started at 9:00 AM, it was hot & muggy. A cool breeze came through now and then, but not often enough. I ended up feeling a bit miserable from the heat and even left about 30 or 40 minutes before it was over. Although I’m sure I missed some shots, it didn’t matter.  I was beat.

Overall, I thought it was a very good workshop. The private home serving as our location was absolutely lovely with plenty of interesting backgrounds.  John & Susan did a very nice job of explaining their intent for the workshop and set expectations.  At too many of these events, it seems like photographers get excited to see a beautiful model and they just go apeshit clicking pictures. Susan nicely told them not to do that, and John explained that it was their hope to teach us about lighting concepts, posing and other elements of this kind of photoshoot. They broke us up into groups and informed us that the model couldn’t concentrate on everyone at once.  Participants could snipe from the side (as you just can’t get them to refrain from doing so), but that the model should only have to take direction from one shooter at a time.  It was a perfect introduction.  That’s exactly what I want to hear and how I want these workshops to proceed. It almost worked, too.

For every workshop that I’ve attended, there’s always been someone who just had to be that guy. You may know the one I’m talking about.  The guy who knows it all and has to let you know it, or quite simply, the selfish guy. Despite the excellent foundation that John & Susan laid down, there was a guy in my group who was just a selfish son of a bitch.  I say that now because I kept my mouth shut during the event.  When I get overheated and feeling miserable, I can get a pissy attitude where every little thing annoys me. By this time in my life, I’m cognizant of it. That’s why I would prefer to err on the side of caution and keep my mouth shut.  Partially because running my mouth in a miserable mood has never made anything better, and partially because it may just be a matter of my perception because I’m feeling miserable.

Now that I’ve had a couple of days to think about it, I realize that I was right. That guy was just a selfish bastard who would stand in front of you while doing your shots, never voluntarily give up the PocketWizard to control the lights, and always asserted himself on other people’s shots.  As you can tell, he annoyed the hell out of me.  That’s a shame, because everything else was great. The models were lovely, friendly, and really wanted to help us make some nice images. By no means was the workshop ruined, but one selfish dude put more of a damper on my day than the heat.  It seems there’s always one in every crowd.

Despite the fact that you may run into that guy at a workshop, don’t let it stop you from going. In contrast to the selfish guy, I met another new friend who wants to collaborate on some projects, and also ran into someone I hadn’t seen in a while that’s equally interested in doing some of our own shoots. Workshops are still a great way to get experience with new gear, try some techniques, and meet some people who are interested in the same thing you are.