Monday, February 13, 2012

Weekend After The Super Bowl Photography Workshop

This past Saturday was either my 4th or 5th year of holding my “Weekend After The Super Bowl Photography Workshop”. I have not been good at keeping track.

I never planed out my marketing approach to holding this workshop; I have always picked the weekend after the Super Bowl because, hey, no football on TV. What else is there to do in Pittsburgh on the weekends?

It appears to be the perfect weekend for holding this workshop so starting next year it will become the…

“Inaugural 6yrs Running 1st Annual Weekend After The Super Bowl Photography Workshop”.

Catchy isn’t it...

One of the strangest things that I do in this workshop is take the class outside to practice taking photos. Taking people outside to take photos, not that strange. But taking them out in February, now that's maddeningly insane. Now, for you non-northern people reading this, February in Pittsburgh is cold, crazy Arctic, feel your nose hair, cold. For some stroke of dumb-luck every previous year the workshop has fallen on an unseasonably mild February day.

This year I made the assumption that my luck would continue. On account of winter in Pittsburgh this year being non-existent, all I can think of is all the good things that come before the apocalypse of global warming. Do assumptions ever work out for anybody?

I awoke to 3 inches of snow blanketing the roads outside my home. This is not going to be good, I think to myself. To my happiness my good luck continued. C’mon this is Pittsburgh. The class is filled with Pittsburghers. Snow is not a problem for these people. The class was filled and at 10:15am sharp and we started.

This class was the best ever. Seriously, the best ever. We have all been in classes or meetings and there is always, and I do mean always, that one person who asks so many dumb questions that is slows the class for everyone else. Well, this class did not have that person, thank God. This class was filled with passionate, motivated, extremely good looking (wink, wink) people interested in discovering the joys of creating a photo.

A recap of the class: we took the journey of a human-centered approach to creating photos (no microwaves, no vending machines...my metaphors are magical). Then we read our Gospel, which gave us a deeper understanding of the Trinity; it all accumulates with the immaculate reincarnation of a photograph…

In all honesty I can say the class was transfigured by a blinding radiant light from the appearance of the photographs on the back of their cameras…quite blissful if I do say so myself.

Photograph the light
Compose the subject