Mark wanted to host again this year in Alabama. I was like…cool! Kassandra and I really enjoy out trips out to Birmingham and Mark’s family. Food is great and the hospitality even better! This time we did a 3-day SWB. Wow! What fun! We shot at a very secret location and I would have to kill you if I told you where it is! We also shot at my all time favorite bride shoot locations, the old Sloss steel mill. Randi and Keith, thank you for the use of your nice warm home! Maggie was fun again and Asia chased her around the whole trip yelling: Maggie, Maggie, come here, come here! Mark you did it again! What a great class you hosted! Thank you all from Asia, Kassandra and me for the Southern hospitality!

Here are a few of my favorites from the class.

Our good friend Janey of Mary Jane photography hosted our latest workshop in sunny Santa Barbara. What a BLAST!! David Jay provided his ‘Freedom House’ for the classroom part and the pizza get together. What a generous host! What a view!! A special thank you to Crystal Hutchinson for all your help in organizing at DJ’s! Janey came up with some cool places to shoot. Especially the Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park. That was so cool! We could have stayed in one room for the whole day and just kept moving furniture around and trying different concepts. Everyone got some amazing images!! Check them out below! Mae Van Vooren attended the class with her husband Michael and was a tremendous help! Thank you!! However, Michael and Kassandra are too much alike, and should never be allowed to shop for groceries together! The devastating fires started there right after we left. We are so thankful that Janey and DJ were evacuated safely and their homes didn’t burn! It was a near thing!

What an awesome workshop! I enjoyed shooting with you all!

Kim James and Heidi Miller hosted a great workshop in way-out-there Redding, California. Zack Arias of One Light Workshops and I decided to do a workshop together, and was it fun! Zack and I are completely different in approach and well….everything! That is what made it fun! We split the class and did our own workshops until the last day. We combined our skills on the last day and worked together to finish off a great 3 day workshop! I took my half around the big tall trees of Lassen National Park. We shot in a lava tube (a dark rounded cave), an old theater, and also the modern Redding Bridge.

Kim provided the great models and Heidi went out of her way to host Zack’s class and the final day. Heidi put on a wine and cheese party that was awesome! She is a great cook! Her family owns a winery and the wines are amazingly good! Check out her site: www.onemaplewinery.net

Thanks Heidi and Kim again for hosting the workshop! Thanks Zack for helping make this a doubly informative and fun workshop! It was a blast!

including me under the marquee taken by Cyndy!

Cyndy and Paul Meyer hosted a fantastic workshop! One of the coolest things Cyndy and Paul did for me was to put my name up in lights!! Literally! They donated some money to a historical theater and the theater put my name up on the marquee. Wow!! What can I say!!!! You guys are great! Check out the shot! Cyndy and Paul opened their home and cooked some great meals for us! Cyndy is a dynamite cook! They went out of their way to be amazing hosts! Paul was a police officer before turning to photography. My father was also, so we had plenty to talk about. We were both in search and rescue also. Small world! For this workshop we chose a smaller town outside of Pittsburg, called Harmony. What a fun little town! It feels strait out of the 20’s. It has old buildings standing firm against any bulldozer that comes along. One building we shot in was an old corn mill that had not been used for a long while and was up for sale. It needs to be turned into a museum, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how you could make it safe for all to come in and check it out. Felt like we were going to go through the floors at any minute! Everyone loved the place! I want to thank, whole heartedly, Cyndy and Paul for giving me their big ‘secret’ in the location of Harmony!

These shots are some of my fav's from photographers in the class!

I decided to fly into Tromso (a city above the Arctic Circle in the North of Norway) without finding out beforehand what the countryside looked like. I wanted to just absorb it and enjoy it when I landed. I was pleasantly surprised by sheer mountains jutting up from the sea, glazers, fiords, small little seaside villages and warm people. Bjorn met me at the airport with his shy young daughter. Since I love kids, any shy one is just a challenge for me to work on them until they start to smile and give me ‘fives’. As Bjorn showed me around to some of the workshop shooting locations, his daughter, Margareta became all smiles! Bjorn never stopped smiling and I enjoyed the day. We stopped by and watched Hovsep (the host for the workshop) shoot the portrait part of his wedding he had on that day. The bride was very traditional and it was driving him a little crazy. Well actually that is one of the reasons this workshop sold out, the students were hungry to find any way to break out of the overly traditional style, Norwegian brides wanted from there photographers. I tailored my workshop to help put a ladder to that ‘wall’. Hovsep (an Armenian who has brought the wonderful parts of his couture to his family), Henrietta (who is a native Norwegian) have a love story that should be made into a movie! It involves Lebanon, war, love, many, many years apart, chance, and all the ingredients of a love story strait out of Hollywood. They invited me into their home and were amazing hosts. This is why I created this style of workshop, it gives me a chance to make friends and live with people from around the world. I hope that I can at least bring some interesting conversation and some smiles to families that bring me into their lives. The workshop was great and the students seemed hungry to learn. I don’t have all the answers but I do have massive passion to change the wedding industry into something better than it was. The last day the sun came out (we had some misty overcast days) and we shot at one of the more interesting beach locations I have been to. With the big snowcapped mountains as a backdrop we shot with great light and strong waves. Amazing! I spoke at the local photography club also and they seemed to enjoy my talk. Fun! Kassandra and little Asia met me after the last day and we drove around North Norway for 5 days. We had good times with Hovsep and his family! The last night Hovsep and I photographed the aurora borealis, the best one I have ever seen! Thank you Hovsep and Bjorn for putting on a great workshop and for all of your hard work. Looking forward to coming back again!

Here are some of my favorite shots from many of the photographers at the workshop.

I have been to England many times. This was a thoroughly wonderful trip with great company, Steven and the workshop students. Steven hosted this workshop at Fanham’s Hall, a 17th Century Mansion just North of London. Wow, what a great location! So much to shoot and so many places to just hang and enjoy! Lots of dark nooks and crannies to look for cracks of light. You could create fantastic beams of light by shutting all the large curtains and slightly opening one or two. Place a model/bride in a window with light wrapping around them and it was hard to take a bad shot. Reflective floors, medieval looking doors…it was all there! Even a Japanese garden! Fanhams did a great job setting me up and allowing us to shoot until we dropped. Steven came up with cooperative models, and great locations. Steven has a great eye for photography and I was honored to shoot with him on a wedding at Somerleyton Hall & Gardens, a 12th century castle. What a place to practice your creative art…at! Just great! The b&g were totally up for whatever we ‘art-hooligans’ wanted to throw at them! Totally fun day! Thanks Steven for working hard to make this workshop a great experience for me! I really enjoyed teaching in England!

Here are some of my favorite shots from many of the photographers at the workshop.

Just a few more. Hope you like them!