WPPI 2009 - Impressions of a newbie - Day 2
Day two began with my alarm… not ringing. I was so tired last night that I messed up AM and PM :) Miraculously I woke up at 7am sharp (as planned) on my own! While having a breakfast at MGM’s McDonald’s I bumped into a couple of guys from Sarasota. We chatted a bit and then I headed off to the registration. Crowd was arriving and the stream of people pouring into the conference center was picking up fast. Since there were just a few classes offered on Sunday with very limited sitting I rushed to the first class of my choice which later turned out to be a very wise move. The room was set up to accommodate only 250 people and 40mins before the start time it was not only filled to capacity, but people were trying to stand (even though it was going to be a two hour class) on each side of the room.
So, the First class was held by Robert Lino. Robert is a well known Miami based wedding photographer and his class was all about how “The small details make the big difference”. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t very impressed by the intro (showcasing his work) he played for us at the beginning of his speech. I thought about jumping to another class at first but then decided to stick around a little longer. Once he was done explaining his studio setup and began talking about posing techniques I got intrigued. He ended up giving us few useful tips which I’m sure will help me (or anybody else who has no prior training in posing). Some of the things he covered were: using S and C curves when posing women, dealing with height differences when photographing couples, demonstrated the use of head tilts to emphasize feminine or masculine features of a person, cleverly hiding “not so good looking” people behind “better looking people” when posing groups, properly positioning the subject in light in order to make them look slimmer.
A great bonus of attending Robert’s class was the fact that… Frank Salas was speaking right after him and in the very same room, which means we all just kept our seats. What happened next was a total madness. So many people stormed into the room during the brake (wanting to see Frank’s presentation) that it was hard to even move around the auditorium - people were everywhere, sitting on the floor, standing up against the walls, hanging off the ceilings :) Unfortunately, a fire marshal showed up and ordered everyone who wasn’t properly seated to leave the room or the class would be canceled. Disappointed crowed boo’ed WPPI but cleared the area. (Although Frank did promise that he’ll try to fit in one more presentation during the week for those who couldn’t stay today). The second class began.
The Second class was held by Frank Salas. Frank touched a little bit on everything - starting from marketing, going into posing and interacting with your clients, ending with some of his favorite post processing techniques. He also demonstrated his most frequently used Nik filters as well as Viveza PS plugins. He answered questions on how he structures his pricing, talked about pros and cons of shoot-n-burn vs shooting for an album. He was definitely fun to listen to and I could relate to his work better.
After the class I rushed downstairs and grabbed a quick snack because it was close to 5pm and all I had that day was a single egg McMuffin which I ate earlier that morning. Next, Tony (we met during the second class) and I headed down to the Welcome Reception - the official WPPI 2009 kick off. This was a completely staged wedding photographed by photography legends - Bambi Cantrell, Joe Buissink, Dennis Reggie, Yervant and Jerry Ghionis! And all of us (WPPI Conference attendees) were the wedding guests - observing, learning and having fun!
The show turned out to be quite entertaining :) Bambi interviewed each shooter before they were given 10-15 mins of “camera time”. Each of the photographers shared with us their “shooting style”, commented on lenses they were going to use, angles they were planning on taking and camera settings they were about to dial in. It was interesting to learn that Joe never looks at the back of his camera (never chimps) because to this day he shoots mostly film (some digital). Or how Jerry shoots JPEG only and can shoot an entire wedding with his favorite 70-200 f/2.8 IS L. That night all of them used 5DMK2’s equipped with wifi radio transmitters. Every shot they fired was immediately sent to a centralized computer via wifi and few minutes later we saw unedited/unprocessed/straight out of the camera shots on big screens located on each side of the stage where everything was taking place. It was quite cool. Jerry as always impressed with his use of video light (while the rest of the guys were shooting available light). I liked how Jerry made a comment saying that “this sort of creative approach is what will separate us, the pros from wedding guests, especially when they’re equipped with the same camera/lens”
The entire show was played as if it was a real wedding. Bridal party pictures taking, groom with grooms men, then the ceremony itself and then shots of the bride and the groom. There was also a little slide show of Joe taking “getting ready” shots done earlier that day (also unedited/unprocessed).
Once the ceremony was over everybody broke for a quick “happy hour” (drinks/food). Second part of the show was “wedding reception” with a lot of dancing and more drinking and more shooting (everyone who had cameras pulled them out and really went at it:) Mine was in a safe at the hotel, therefore sorry - no pics :)
Around 11pm I took off because it was a long day and I was completely exhausted. I collapsed as soon as I walked into my room. That was the end of day two.