Last week I was lucky enough to escape the chilly British weather and head for the sun. Working as a self employed portrait photographer means that I am responsible for my own training and development and there are so many different ways of staying up to date with new developments and improving my photography. I love the odd trade show (I’m a geek at heart), need to know the technical stuff (sometimes), but nothing quite beats getting out there with your camera and actually shooting. Which is exactly what I did last week. I have heard Damien Lovegrove speak at a number of seminars and trade shows and love his photography, so booked onto a workshop with him, a gorgeous model and of course some fellow photographers. Further details of the Lovegrove training courses can be found on his website – he offers a huge range of training and I hope to sample some more of it in the future: Lovegrove training site.
The adventure started at Stansted where I discovered that taking all your camera kit away and flying RyanAir are two things that should not be mixed – I certainly won’t be doing that again. But once the flight was behind us it was fantastic to actually arrive in what felt like a different world. What a treat! Not just leaving the threat of snow in the UK for hot sunny weather, but the chance to explore the dramatic locations that Fuerteventura has to offer and to experiment with different lighting techniques. We were lucky enough to have the beautiful Carla Monaco modelling for us – she had a lot of big cameras pointing at her all day but took it with good grace and made it all look very easy. Different locations, different clothes, different poses, and always a camera on her, she was a star. Carla Monaco’s website. It might sound glamorous being a model, but this is what it was really like!
The landscape varied from deserted sand dunes to dramatic windswept beaches and deserted buildings which provided a wealth of opportunity for us. My focus was mainly on portrait photography as that is what I naturally find myself seeking from an image, but there were also some fabulous “wide” shots to be had to take in the location and setting. Here are just a few:
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