Wedding / Portraiture Courses

Livin The Dream

Livin The Dream

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Kris
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I have been pondering the odd course to help assist me with posing etc and maybe a bit of PP help. As a result have been looking at the Lovegrove day courses but was wondering what other options there is. I'm a bit sceptical about exactly how much I could learn in a day which are quite costly. I'm thinking that maybe trying to get some extra experience as a second shooter would be a better option? Any thoughts, recommendations?

Cheers

Kris
 
A course will give you the chance to work in a more relaxed stress free way, but you'll probaly learn more on a real wedding, I doubt a course will have a 100 guests for you to control.
 
You need to do both. :) Sorry!

I have done various courses in the last couple of years with the likes or Martin Grahame-Dunn, Trevor and Faye Yerbury, Brett Harkness etc and each and every one has taught me something that I now use on weddings. Flash for winter weddings, top shade in sunlight, how to simplify the shot and increase the quality.

Second shooting will teach you more about the order of the day and how to get ready for what comes next, shooting the right things from the right places but it won't teach you anything about shooting skills and PP.

I've gone on to do more training on PP and album design and next March I have a one week residential course with fellow wedding photographers with no holds barred!

The other thing to consider is some of the DVD based training with Damian or the phototraining4U with Mark Cleghorn, some good value for money there.

It might seem expensive but you can sometimes learn in one day what it would otherwise take you a year to learn on your own. How quickly do you want to progress?

I add training into my budget because it is continuous professional development and needs to be considered as such.
 
Thanks Ali I was hoping someone like yourself would add something to this. Have you been to one of the Lovegrove days? I have had both of their wedding dvds and consumed all of them several times over but there's no substitute usually for getting out there and doing it.

As a result of my first couple of weddings this year I have received a couple of offers for more next year but I really would like to develop myself a bit more first. I still feel that becoming a second shooter for someone is going to be the way to develop quicker. Although i'm very critical of myself I could do with a trained eye to provide the critisism that's needed.
 
Livin The Dream said:
Although i'm very critical of myself I could do with a trained eye to provide the critisism that's needed.
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Hmmmm you won't necessarily get this shooting as a second though. Some photographers will help you to develop but others will just want you there to shoot what they want you to shoot. To provide the extra cover or shoot the alternative angle. It won't always lead you to developing yourself and often you are too buy running around to stand and watch how a lead photographer shoots.

I've not been on a Lovegrove day but I know Chris Hanley who teaches with Damian and they are very well structured. Both are exceptional photographers and a 1-1 day with Chris would set you back about £1000.

Personally I think you have to mix it all up to get the best education and development you can. Online, DVD and workshops were what I did for the first two years. Now I am into more structured training and will spend for a day PP training and a day album design training.

That's why I advocate a bit of everything, take what you learn from each experience and put it all in your own toolbox.
 
I know you mention posing and PP but have you a clear idea of what you wish to get from a course and if you think your target is achievable? I must admit, I've never taken a course for a couple of reasons a) I could never decide which one; and b) I wasn't sure if I would get enough out of a course to justify the expense.

With regards to posing I would highly recommend the David Pearce book Wedding Photography - A Guide to Posing. There are also many other training resources out there both online and in the written form that will be able to help you. With regards to PP I am going to make a big assumption that you know how to use your editing software, if so what are your areas of weakness that make you think you require a course? I think every photographer has to develop their own style and this comes from a combination of eye, composition, posing and post processing. Have a look at my work, then check out Simon Revill's (spxxxx) and Guy Collier's (Radiohead) - we each have our own style and whilst I can't speak for my own images Simon's and Guy's are instantly recognisable (to me anyway). Their styles have not come from a training course but from their own interpretation of an image and we all apply our own consistent processing techniques - this does take some time as you develop your style and workflow but you will get there eventually.
 
Your work & those you mention Colin I do admire on here regularly so many thanks for your input.

I would regard my PP skills as not too shabby but i'm still looking to develop my general consistency which I think is getting better but I also need to define my own style. I love the Lovegrove 'look' and had a phase of high contrast yet not really achieving it properly [obviously a few actions missing] so back to a more softer, classic look. If I do go with one course it will probably be the intermediate lovegrove PP one just so I know how to acheive that punchy look, whether that's the style I stick with who knows?

I'm going to put together some sort of scrap book of posing from the various wedding images I have tagged for a while but I have found it comes fairly naturally when out in the field, I just need to get out doing it more often.

I nearly bought that posing book a while ago so will do now, thanks.
 
I did the courses because I wanted to fast track my development as much as possible in the first two years but very much agree with Colin when it comes to developing your own style.

The training courses are very useful and the PP one I did was all about streamlining workflow. I can now get from a set of 800 to 1000 RAW's to 300 album quality images in about 5-6 hours. Then another half day for the album design. That's down from about 4 days of work so well worth the investment since I have 20 booked for next year already. That does not compromise how I want my finished images to look as that is still down to me and is a mixture of various actions both commercially available and my own.

It's not a case of doing them to try to buy some sort of success but simply choosing to expose myself to different ways of doing things and then taking all the bits I want from them. There have been several occasions where I have had a real "DOH" moments when I have realised what I should be doing so I have definately had a lot of benefit from doing them.

Equally I have learned a lot second shooting and I have been lucky to work with some great photographers who have been very generous.

For me it was all about getting out of the blocks quickly and at my age I didn't have all day to get what I would term proficient never mind anything exceptional. So I simply chose to use all the tools available. It's not going to be the right path for everyone, we all get to where we want in our own way, it's just one way of doing it. :)
 
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That's a fair point Ali about workflow. I spent far too long with the wedding I did recently, I'd hate to add up the hours faffing. But I took it on knowing it would help me overall. Unfortunately until I do it regularly I won't be able to tweak it properly as the odd shoot here and there isn't quite like a 1000 shots from a wedding.
 
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