GUEST POST: Andrew - Cambodia Photography Workshop
/Note: This post is written and all photos by Andrew Hardacre (less portraits of Andrew) who travelled to Cambodia with us. Andrew shot with a combination of Leica M9 and Fuji X100 for this trip. This is his story.
Photography biorhythms was a new concept to me. Rise at 5.30am, bed at midnight. Flat out. All day, every day.
Gary warned us that we would burn out if we tried to do this. I didn't listen.
The evidence however is in the catalogue. A few gems taken in a burst, followed by long interludes of the mundane. Devoid of inspiration, no spark. Fortunately I did listen to everything else he taught us. I can't promise I can put everything into practice at once. I do however have a much better understanding of the importance of colour, how to engage a subject and the value of a tight frame.
I was already a black and white junky but although I still think B&W first, I can now see why in the past my colour images often failed. I need to go and seek out colours that work and be more selective in what I shoot.
And the really big lesson is then selecting what to keep and what to trash. Forced ranking the day's files down to 20, then 15, then 10....... that was interesting.
(Andrew scouting for new subjects from the Tuk Tuk)
On day 1 and 2 the challenge was to decide which 20 to put up for critique. By the end of day 4 the problem was the other way round. Can I find 10 worth showing out of the hundreds I have taken.
I compared this in my blog to doing a language immersion course and I guess that is pretty close - this is an immersion course in the language of light. Me definitely Leica :-)
Note from Gary from F8 Photography: Andrew produced an excellent body of work during the 3 day workshop. Andrew was one of the most self critical members of the workshop - this is something I consider to be a great asset as a photographer, you MUST be able to criticise your own work and be open to constructive criticism in order to grow. Another point from me was that Andrew explained to me before the workshop that he had spent little time photographing 'people' as he is a big fan of nature and landscape photography, and he wanted to expand his portfolio with 'people'.
(Andrew and Gary chilling out whilst waiting for the boat to ferry them across the River Mekong)
I think it is very evident in this short showcase that Andrew easily achieved his goals and produced some fantastic environmental portraits and close up character studies. It was a real pleasure having Andrew with us on the workshop and we very much look forward to spending time shooting with him again in the future. In the meantime, here are a few more images of Andrews from the workshop and some links below to his blog:
Andrew has his own blog that showcases more of his images from Cambodia and his other photography interests also, please take time to go have a look, heres the link below:
We will have other posts from the workshop attendees as well as behind the scenes shots and video coming soon. Please stay tuned for that, you can now 'search' the blog on the left side of this post to find subject posts easily, try typing 'cambodia' to find all our posts from there if you wish to read more.
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F8 Photography provides commercial photography and photography and video training workshops, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.
