Vancouver Photography Workshop with Christopher Morris

Last week at this time I was heading back from Vancouver after a two-day Small Strobe Bootcamp with Christopher Morris, a Vancouver Photographer of 25 years.  Christopher taught his course through V.P.W. and the entire experience, from start to finish, was exceptional.  Besides being a knowledgeable, talented master photographer, Christopher is just a really down-to-earth, generous, humble guy.  I came away from his course feeling completely inspired and excited about putting my new knowledge and ideas into practice.

Here is one of my favourite shots from the weekend:

Our weekend workshop began with a morning seminar about lighting with small strobes and an overview of the day.  After lunch, we met at a boxing gym for our first shoot.

Here are a few 'behind-the-scenes' shots of the gym:

After Christopher's demonstration, we were given a model and a boxer and as many light modifiers etc. as we desired in order to create our own lighting set-ups.  Our first task was a single-light set-up, trying to match the ambient light in the gym, and I had Shazmin to work with:

Next, we worked in small groups to create a multi-light set-up for our boxer, Abdul:

Our location shoot wrapped at about 6:00 pm and we headed home to edit our shots for the critique the next day.  Sunday morning we met at VPW studios where Christopher and his team had set-up four different lighting situations.  After more demos from Chris, we were set free to work with models at each of the four stations so that we could to get a feel for the different ways of lighting a subject.

IT WAS A BLAST!  To be in such a fabulous space, in the company of people who were all interested in the same thing I was, with all the equipment I could possibly need at my disposal, professional models to work with, AND professional guidance whenever it was required was simply AMAZING!

Here are a few shots of Kevin, Laura, Shazmin and Loreena:

The end of our bootcamp took us back to the classroom for a critique of our gym shots from the previous day and an inspiring closing from Christopher that left me a little misty-eyed, truth be told.

Thanks to Christopher, to all the models, to the fine folks at VPW and to my classmates.  You've all reminded me of how important it is to take risks, to ask questions, to play and to share.  I'm inspired.