Rejuvinated!

The past for weeks have been amazing. I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed my RHU intensive course on Missional Photography - it has really been a blessing in my life in so many ways! I have learned heaps in mechanics, ethics, and guts! I've also been blessed with new and deeper friendships and memories that will rest with me for a long time to come. Thank you Dane, Mike & Jessica for the hard work you put into hosting & teaching this intensive - you three ROCK!



Ok, so as a quick recap of the final class, I wanted to mention a few things. We had a wonderful guest contributor, Wendy, who came and spoke to us about poverty. Not the poverty that most of us think of, but true social, political, economic and spiritual poverty and the lies that are told and believed surrounding each of those. Here's Wendy speaking to the class.



She sparked a really interesting conversation about exactly what we take photos of and how we portray poverty. It was truly fascinating. For more information about this, visit www.povertyunlocked.com - that's Wendy's site.

Here's Dane & Jessica enjoying a random moment - I just liked Dane's expression. It reminded me of all the other smiles and laughs the class shared during the past month.



Ok, enough sentimentality... So we took one final opportunity to go through submitted photos and c&c a little bit. They took turns guessing if the submitted photos were taken by someone who knew the subject or not...



Afterwards, we all took advantage of one more time to say thanks, exchange emails, take photos and give & received hugs (and maybe eek out one more bit of advice). Here's my buddies Nate and Steve talking to Dane one more time.



Thanks again to Dane & Rock Harbor for putting this on and doing all the work to organize and present such a fab class. I feel like my photography received some much needed rejuvination! So when I seem to get lame again, feel free to kick me in the pants and remind me about this class!

That's it for tonight. Ren-Faire and wedding photos from this past weekend are coming soon! :-)

~Brienne

Adventures at Starbucks

I'm lame - my ferosh is officially diminished (temporarily anyway....). I don't feel like I accomplished my assignments this week for my final class tonight. I am tempted to blame it on shooting a wedding this Sunday, but that would add to the lameness I think. But suffice it to say, I'm EXHAUSTED (in the happiest way).

In the meantime, while I contemplate my diminished fierceness, I'm sitting in Starbucks in Costa Mesa. I drive down way early to beat the traffic. I did however take some shots here just to help my recovery to my previous status. :-) And I was enjoying the starbuck-ian artwork...




Btw, if any of you know the story from my visit to this same Starbucks last week (and my hurried and somewhat comic escape from The Marxist), may I just say - GUESS WHO JUST WALKED IN AND SAT DOWN NEXT TO ME. I don't know whether I should be flattered or scared. Well, he perseveres anyway. I definitely just snuck a pic....




Ok, back to my latte and photo editing.

Team YAO - Feel free to Join Us!

Hey everyone - if you're free and want to join us for some shooting action today, "Team YAO" (as the undefined group is affectionately known) is heading out to the socal Renaissance Faire today. There should be innumerable portrait opportunities there!




We're planning to meet up around noon and drive in together to save on parking costs (aka cram as many bodies into as little cars as possible), so if you're interested call or text my biz cell: 626-905-9555

Woot! Hope to see you there!

PS: The images above, in clockwise order starting from the upper left were taken by Bruce A. Ward, Rommel R. Muego and Richard Lowe respectively.

Should I Be Concerned?

At this weeks' class at RHU, I found myself amused and slightly concerned. I noticed while I was listening to Mike speak that Dane had a certain mug under his chair....





Now, as a hard core Office fan, this was a disturbing sight - especially since I like Dane.




Hahaha! I asked him about it and he mentioned that his assistant gave it to him. NOT A GOOD SIGN. Ha! At least he didn't buy it for himself like Michael... Now if I ever see Dane with peanut butter all over his head or hosting a "Rabies Awareness" Run/Walk, then I'll REALLY get concerned!

Much love Dane!

Week #3 Winner

Last night at week #3 of Missional Photography: More than Pictures at RHU I went along with some of my blog buddies (namely Captain Chipmunk and Human Pudding...) and submitted my Taquito picture. :-)




Guess it was a good pick - Dane picked it as his favorite. :-) Thanks for the input from everyone! I haven't figured out where yet, but we're planning on going back out this weekend for another photo adventure with "Team YAOoooo". If you want to come with, let me know and I'll get the info to you! And I'm definitely open to suggestions!

This week's assignment (the final one :-( ):
- Get 2 portraits of 2 different people -- one we person know, one we don't
- The portraits should be our best attempt to create a "defining" portrait of the person (one
shot to tell exactly who this person is - as much as possible anyway)
- You can use any lens, but it has to be the same lens for each portrait.
- No photoshop (or lightroom), etc.

Any volunteers?

Woot! This is going to be fun!

Photojournalism Downtown

I don't even know where to begin, but this one is going to be a long one, so bear with me. :-)

Yesterday, four of us decided to take the train down to Downtown and get our photojournalism on (thanks to our Missional Photography course). We spent a few hours wandering all around Union Station, Olvera Street, Chinatown and everywhere in between (not as much area as it sounds). We came armed with our gear (under 85mm lenses as per the assignment) and set out to get permission for as many shots as possible. Surprisingly, it wasn't nearly as difficult this time around. It even got less scary as time went by. Yay!

Lucky for us, Saturday was the 50th Celebration of the market on Olvera Street. There were celebrations going on everywhere - I was excited to snag this spontaneous dance between a few performers during another bands' concert in the square. My gaining permission went something like my pointing at my camera and then them and getting a nod and a wink.




Then it was off to taquito-land. One of my favorite lands by the way. ;-p After a brief explanation by Steve and Nate about them not being "together", I got permission to take some shots of the cooks. They were aweseom! I'm trying not to think about all that oil though.... Worth it for the food!




We continued our wandering, and Steve seemed to make a lot of friends. We didn't think it would be nice to let him know they weren't all real....




Btw, we're committed to our photography. ;-)




Again, Steve makes many friends....or "YAAAOOOOOoooo!" as he would say...



More dancers after after their performance. They were so awesome - we asked to take their photo and they smiled, said yes, and started voguing. This is what we call "BAMF"



Now this one I felt sort of bad about. When I asked him if I could take his picture next to his taxi, he agreed, but then had to grab his sunglasses to add to the "cool". I think he thought we were going to use his taxi though...




Nate wanted some camera time too...




The floor of the Chinatown station. :-)




Ok, so Nate REALLY needed some camera time.... He's single ladies!




This guy was one of my favorites. He was so blatantly honest. When we asked him if we could take his photo, he readily agreed and then pulled out his favorite "prop" - his pocket vodka. There was something tragically real about the entire exchange (he even told us he was about to buy more). He was missing most of his teeth, clearly had some problems, and yet retained a general love of people he didn't even know. It's amazing where you find little glimpses of God - bits of eternal peeking through - even in an unstable drunk man.




We ended with some fun taking pictures of each other (gotta keep practicing our portrait shots!) with this awesome painted tile wall just outside Olvera Street. Michelle went first.




Nate took these ones of me. I'm surprised the flesh on his hands didn't burn off while he was holding my Nikon... ;-)




Sorry I put my watermark on your shot Nate - force of habit. But NATE TOOK THIS SHOT, I promise! - clearly I didn't, I'm in it....



Check out Nate and his crazy shooting style. He even manages to hold his ice cream sandwich while shooting.... Nice.




Ok. That's all for now. But trust me, that isn't the only shots from today - there are sooo many! If you have a fav from this post that you recommend for my print to submit this week, let me know! I'm going to have a hard time picking!

More to come!
~B

PS: We're thinking we may make this a regular monthly thing. If you're interested in joining us for a fun day of random shooting, comment or email me to let me know. :-)

Missional Photography Intensive #2

As we delved into Week #2 of the Missional Photography: More than Pictures intensive course at RHU, we tackled the topic of exposure. I was so impressed with Jessica Claire as she grappled with this rather huge subject and tried to condense it into roughly 90 minutes. Whew!

She used several of her own images to illustrate her points and I found myself realizing that I must prefer over-exposed images. Most of the stuff that is "properly exposed" looks dark to my eyes. But that's part of why I'm taking this course! - to see with someone else's eyes and really dive into my own photography and what it is (and isn't) accomplishing.

Here's Jess teaching (with a great shot of hers from Jamaica - does she take a bad one?) and Mike shooting her from the shadows...




This course is really challenging me in ways I didn't expect. I've learned a couple of things about myself: one of them being that I tend to judge the value of my work by comparing it to the work of others. Aka, my work is "bad" because someone else's work is "good". That makes me kind of lame. The other thing I learned is that I'm very reliant on my longest lenses. This is good in some situations, and even appropriate sometimes, but not always. This week, Dane challenged us to use only our shorter lenses (85mm and below I believe) and really work hard to immerse (special word of the night ;-p) ourselves in what we're shooting. And I'm a wee bit of a coward.




I want to honor the dignity of the people I'm shooting and their story that I'm am responsible for telling, so I really want to lean into this. But man it's hard! Do any of you struggle with this? Does it terrify you even a little bit to approach a total stranger (with or without a camera)? If it does, PLEASE share with me how you deal with it! I'd love pointers. :-)

Look at how laid back Mike is when he shoots! LOL - even his feet are coming out of his shoes. Also, I want that lens (*drools*)




I had some requests to post the assignments for those of you who haven't been able to get to the workshop (btw, you are still welcome to jump in even for the last two weeks if you're able!), so here they are...

We have to continue to shoot 100 photos a day and are assignment this week is much like last week (bringing in a 8x10 print of our best storytelling shot), but this time, it should reflect our conversation on exposure and we can't use long lenses. I'll post my choice or let you vote on the options.

Fab!

This Week's Submission

Ok, I know I said I was going to take a vote, but I ended up getting some advice from another photographer and my husband, I went ahead and went to print. Here it is!

Keep in mind, we're supposed to be trying to capture a story - something that makes you wonder, that begs a question, or displays tension via the subject, the conflict, or the setting. I hope I accomplished that. I LOVE feedback though! So tell me, what does this photo make you think?

Mishka -- for the heck of it...

Ok, seriously, can you believe those eyes? One of the fun (and sometimes intimidating) things about having friends that are photographers is that you get to take pictures of them occasionally. It can be sorta scary to take pictures of a photographer and let them see the images, but fortunately I don't have to worry about that with Mishka (Michelle) - it's impossible to take a bad photo of her!

Mishka and I were supposed to head to downtown LA for some photo fun, but my stomach decided against train travel and I ended up spending most of the day in bed. I did rally towards the afternoon (barely) and we headed to the Valley for some quick shots (LA trip coming soon....)

One more just because her eyes are THAT amazing. ;-)




Options for the print photo coming soon to a voteing-blog near you! Can't wait to get your feedback!

~Brienne

Inspiration.

I have a secret addiction. Blogs.

I seriously surf them constantly. I might need an intervention. But I love looking at other people's work & art and I love seeing the world from their perspective - even if only for a minute or two (usually like an hour or more.... lol).

I was reading through one of my favorite photographer's blogs, Me Ra Koh (she's AMAZING and really hysterical - if you're a mom, you NEED to read her stuff) and came across her post on Julie Watts - a BMX racer turned mom turned photographer.

Every now and then I see one of those images that burns into my brain and inspires me to create. This image taken by Julie was one of those images.




Me Ra posted it and I immediately followed her link to Julie's blog to read more about it. She's done a whole series on belly dancers (a not-so-secret past time of my own - briefly...) and I was blown away. I love how she played with light and shadow (esp. shadow). It inspires me to play more with that and to take some risks with the lighting in my photos. I'm usually so concerned about my metering and exposure, making sure everything comes out just right. But shadow has its own fierceness too.

Thanks for the inspiration Julie! Keep up the fabulous work!

Photography for Storytelling

Last night I had the immense pleasure of taking the first of four classes through RHU on Missional Photography. This intensive is awesome for a several reasons (three of which you can see in the photo above!). It's led by Dane Sanders, Mike Colon and Jessica Claire (a dream team if I ever saw it) and focuses on the storytelling aspect of photography (a style especially appropriate for missions work).

We started out by watching a brief slideshow of some of Dane's photos from a recent trip to India. I was really struck by several of the photos, but not for the reason I originally thought I might be. I was of course drawn to the emotion and the intensity of the images, but what really struck me was the duality of the eternal and the moral caught in photos.




Photography is truly amazing to me - you capture a moment in time FOREVER. You literally let that moment taste the eternal. There is something so inspiring and humbling about that to me. It's the closest thing to eternity that we can experience on earth. I can look at photos taken by Matthew Brady almost 150 years ago and those people, in that moment, still live. And there's the other side of it. The mortal side. To take at a photograph is to capture the shell of the person. To me it's a reminder that this body is just housing - there is not soul in a photo. You may glimpse a glimmer of it in their eyes, but it does not contain it. The combination of those things is amazing to me. That's part of the importance of honoring a person by telling their story in photos as well.

I'll be blogging about this weekly I'm sure - and you can expect a lot of photos over the next 28 days - we have assignments to take at least 100 photos a day between now - and we have to choose the best one each week for telling a story. Maybe I'll put up my top 5 and have you help me choose! In the meantime, here are a few more images from last night...

Dane teaching some of the basics:



Mike explaining aperture and depth of field while Jessica looks on:



That's all for now. Definitely MUCH more to come over the next several weeks though! I'm so excited!

~Brienne

An Old Love...

For those of you who don't know, I am actually also a musician. Photography is obviously where my heart is, but I've spent almost 17 years now playing the trombone. In fact, I actually got my degree in Music Business and spent some time working in the music industry. It didn't take long for me to move into the realm of photography - in fact it was while working for Columbia Records and Sony/BMG that I fell into photography - but I spent most of my life believing music is where I'd make my living. I'm very glad to be wrong. ;-)

I love music, but the pursuit of it as a money-maker took much of the enjoyment out of it for me. Now, because it's simply for fun or the pure enjoyment factor, I get to play trombone only when I want to. I have had the opportunity to do this again semi-regularly thanks to Doc Opfer at the Master's College in Santa Clarita. I have had the extreme pleasure of playing with the Master's College Winds and we just finished the Spring Concert.

By the way, if you're still wondering which one is the trombone, here's a shot of my friend John's:



And here's a shot of conductor, Doc Opfer (he's always smiling!):



Doc is incredibly enthusiastic about what he does - his love for both his job and the students he works with is contagious - and it really came out in the song selection for this particular concert. He chose several tunes depicting life across America (Silverado from the movie of the same name, American Hymnsong Suite, Midway March by John Williams - from "Midway", Eric Whitacre's Ghost Train, etc...) and installed a giant screen behind the orchestra. He used it to show film clips and photos of American life timed to the music we were playing. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the screen, but it was behind me and I was supposed to be playing....

If you've every wondered what it looks like from the Band/Orchestra side during a concert, here's what we see...







The trumpets warming up for the Silverado solos....



And of course, one of the best parts about this is that I get to play with my husband! I had to sneak a photo of him since he was in the row in front of me....



It was a true pleasure to play with Master's College and I hope to do so again in the future! Thanks for the great concert!

~Brienne