VSP Workshops Blog

Flying can be a stressful time for photographers.  Imagine telling your young kid that he he’s going on an amazing journey – but he can only take one toy along.  That’s more or less reaction we have as we realize that all the kit we want to take with us will weigh the equivalent of your average DHL cargo plane.

You squeeze everything into your bag – camera body, spare body, long lens, wide lens, that expensive portrait lens that you never use but you never know this could be the trip when I get to photograph in a dark room during a power cut and use that single solitary f1.2 aperture…… (more…)

The crazy Texan supplementing our models' wages...

Ah yes…that time of year again.  The big question is – how many costumes can a sane person photograph before they start to rock back and forth in the corner of the room, afraid to even look at their laptop for fear of seeing another mask. I think the answer is five days worth…no more and no less!

I was really impressed by the images produced by this year’s participants.  If anyone is ever curious about the value of doing a workshop – well yes it’s what you can gain from your instructor – but equally as valuable, is what you learn from your fellow photographers.  Seeing how others interpret the same scene – and often in so many interesting and original ways – is really very helpful. (more…)

It’s been many years that I’ve thought of doing a blog post like this. I’ve been running photography workshops and tours in Venice and at the Carnival since 2004, and historically I was always fiercely protective about the knowledge I had. I used to think that if I told everybody what I know, they wouldn’t book a trip with me. Well in reality it’s just not like that. I’m not sharing the extent of my knowledge here only because it would make far too long and boring a read – but I am sharing some of the highlights that I think will help people, photographers in particular, have a productive and fun time at Carnival.  If you find this helpful, and you make it to Venice, keep an eye out for me and give me a wave – don’t wink because I’ll just get freaked out…a thumbs up, a wave, a knowing nod…..

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This was my first band shoot actually – hoping to do more of this kind of thing – not just because it’s far cooler than photographing flowers (apologies to all still life and macro shooters out there), but because Rock bands are just natural performers and bring a lot to the table.
I did quite a lot of location scouting for this shoot – The area opposite the island of Venice, just on the mainland, has a truly enormous area of mega industry – chemical factories – some working, others deserted and rotting. A very cool place actually. Anyway – had a drive around one day to look at some of the deserted factories – amazing locations, and ok if you’re carrying one camera and want to do a little sneaky gorilla-style shooting – but for a commercial shoot, with quite a bit of kit…I didn’t feel like asking the band to lug 80 kilos of kit over a six foot fence. Not to mention insurance, health and safety – plus the yellow hard harts would have made it look like a Village People shoot….I digress… (more…)

Been a little while since I posted folks…crazy year trying to juggle work with the birth of twins last Christmas. Anyway, I’m back and looking forward to getting the blog back into gear.

So to get things back into full swing I thought I’d share this little story about an image that I took back in mid 2009 in Provence. Up until very recently, the RAW file just sat there in Lightroom, un-processed, amongst all the other sparkly finished files. For the life of me I just didn’t know how to post process the file. We were shooting the wild horses of the Camargue during a workshop, and that particular year we had a cloudy morning for this shoot. The year before we had sun, and so shooting with the horses back-lit gave a lot of contrast, seperation between the horses and their background, and lit up all of the water being splashed around. No such luck in 2009 – overcast was what we had. We tried to get right in front of the horses and low down so as to shoot them with the sky behind, rather than bushes. I think it was the best approach, although the guy next to me managed to almost write-off his D3…(if you’re reading John, sorry about that!) (more…)

Street photography is a pretty broad term to be honest. Nonetheless when photographers mention it, I think for the most part we all share a fairly united vision of what it refers to. Interestingly, over the years of running various ‘street photography’ themed workshops with various teachers, there have been some very consistent messages by way of advice and teachings.

One thing that seems to be an approach shared by many pros in this field is the importance of picking your spot. Sometimes we tend to imagine the street photographer akin to the butterfly collector running around with a big net. There’s definitely something to be said for trying to control the elements around you that you can influence – such as when you shoot (the light) and where you shoot. If you meander through the streets constantly, hoping to pounce upon a moment – well it may eventually happen – but who knows what kind of background you’ll get, what the light will be like.

The video below is a selection of sounds and images – moving and still – taken from our Easter Sicily workshop. Being at Easter, the workshop deals mainly with the island’s Easter celebrations, during which what seems like the entire island comes out to take part and witness the very dramatic processions passing through the streets. Whether or not there are a million and one things unfolding before you in the street or not, taking charge of the elements you can to some degree control will put you in a very good position. (more…)

The following is the first part of a free tutorial that covers the concepts of ‘Creative Seeing and Visualisation’. For the last four years, this has been our most popular workshop at VSP, and the below notes form part of the content that we cover in the workshop.

What is Creative Seeing?

In its broadest possible sense, seeing creatively can be understood as identifying a potential photograph from what lays in front of you. We sometimes refer to this as ‘visualizing’, and others might refer to it as using a ‘creative eye’. Despite the many names it has, one thing remains constant – it is most likely the challenge of spotting a potentially successful photograph. There is a wonderful cohesion between almost every type of photographic endeavor – every type of photographic course or workshop. Whether you are a fashion photographer trying to work out how to construct the shoot, or you’re just reading a photography book on the train going to work, one thing unites us all: we are all seeking to find and create successful images. (more…)

Image by Lars Lindholm

Well perhaps ‘storm evading’ would be a more accurate description of what happened in Tuscany.  Every morning of the workshop, I’d hear somebody on CNN talking about the severe weather system currently pushing across Italy.  Given the forecasts, we were actually very fortunate with the weather.  From a photographer’s perspective, the one thing we hoped for on the workshop was dramatic weather.  Grey, flat light was a no-no, but if it had to be bad, we wanted storm clouds and drama – rather like a scene from Independence Day only without the Armageddon bit afterwards.

Worth thinking about this for a moment – you’re a landscape photographer, you’ve got a trip planned, and your watching the weather forecast which hardly looks promising.  It’s probably happened to many of you, and here at VSP, it’s obviously something we have to pay close attention to when running a photo tour.  Now from a workshop perspective, we obviously want things to be as fun and pleasant as possible, so calm and pleasant weather is always preferable.  However, getting wet and muddy aside, from a purely photographic perspective, bad weather is by no means a sign that your planned landscape shoot is going to be ruined – far from it.

My personal view is this – if it’s raining, work with what you have – don’t turn up to your landscape location with a view of making macro shots of sunflowers against a blue sky, when what you really should be capitalising on, is what nature is throwing at you.  If it’s raining, better that it’s pouring down than a modest drizzle.  If there’s no sun, better black clouds, then a blanket of grey.  It’s all about taking advantage of what nature throws at you – and quite often when nature hurls a curve ball at you, you can end up making some pretty spectacular shots. (more…)

Remember I promised we’d be doing something called ‘Workshop Diaries’?  Well man of my word that I am, here’s the first instalment.  Today was the first day of our now annual Nikon Lighting Workshop, with Joe McNally and his bag of tricks at the teaching helm.  The will be the third year we’ve run this workshop with Joe now, and I’m glad to say, it’s a real blast each year.  Great group of people from all over the world attending – Mexico, Germany, Holland, USA and Australia. (more…)

Hello Everybody – drum rolls, the anticipation, take the phone off the hook…life will never be the same again….
I suppose in the grand scheme of things, VSP are a little late getting into the blog swing of things.  I’ve personally been reading a number of very interesting blogs over the last few years, and often wondered how we could make our own contribution to the bottomless pit of cyber self-publishing.
I take my hat off to Mr McNally and his very enjoyable blog – funny, informative, and well, really just like sitting down next to him for a chat.  Note to self – be funny, be refreshing, fun and informative, don’t post too often….

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