I have a love-hate relationship with wedding photography workshops.
Workshops are great – they are the solution to the lack of photography courses in tertiary institutions.
Photography courses no longer focus on dark-room techniques; they teach software, retouching – skills that could be quantified into a course guide to a panel of academics.
The lecturers are bounded by the bureaucracy of institutions.
When I was studying advertising most of the tutors ended up quitting because they didn’t have a masters degree, hence unqualified to teach.
(But an advertising professor, if such a person exists, would never work in an advertising agency.)
And even if you do find a good course, there is no guarantee that a photographer career is waiting at the end of the tunnel.
That’s why if we want to learn about wedding photography, we need workshops.
We have to, no, we want to learn from the people who are still practising.
The ones in the battlefield.
The ones in leather jackets who look successful.
We can dip our toes in to test the water.
Which brings me to the argument against workshops – anyone can hold one.
ANYONE.
Modern day workshops consist of an authoritative figure teaching life stories, personal anecdotes, tossing word salads like ‘find a voice’, ‘tell a story’, ‘follow your passion’, ‘trust your instinct’, at the price of a tertiary education subject, blurring the lines of education and self-promotion.
Let me say it here, and I’m paraphrasing from an internet meme:
A photographer using herself as an example to preach ‘follow your passion’ is the equivalent of a lottery winner encouraging you to quit your day job and buy lottery tickets.
Everything is either too tedious and technical or too vague and fluffy.
Which is why I’m announcing that I’ll be hosting a workshop … here!
On my blog.
Since of late I came to a conclusion that our lives are pretty much on Facebook and everyone’s attention span is fragmented by scrolling.
Your birthday wishes appear under an election debate, under a shopping promotion, under a comic about coffee, under a protest announcement, under a SNL replay, under a city stabbing incident.
And this is reflecting my age here, I still see Facebook as a place to share social news; not to promote business, even though they recently admitted they are simply a media agency.
(Hint: Media agencies make money from selling ad spaces.)
So I’m hoping to focus and share more of my thoughts and reflections on wedding photography here.
I will try to keep them bite sized, and if you like them, you can subscribe to my weekly email newsletter below and catch up on your own time.
If you’d like to know more about my work, leave a comment.
Send me an email.
