It was an absolute pleasure to attend the first Gulf Photo Plus pop up event that
was held in London during the weekend of September 28/29 2013.
GPP’s main event is run every year in Dubai, where the best photographers
in the world get together for a week’s worth of seminars and workshops and is
regarded by many as the best of its kind, after attending the weekend Pop Up
event, I’m left in no doubt to that claim.
#GPPLondon was held at King’s College, right opposite The Shard, which was handy as my hotel was a fifteen minute walk away, so all I had to do to find the venue was
to look up, I wasn’t going to get lost in London…
I arrived in town on Friday afternoon, so I had time to go and check out King’s College as I didn’t want to be late on Saturday morning, once I got there I met the wonderful Hala, she is one of the organisers of GPP and was so warm, friendly and approachable, I knew I was in for a great weekend, just didn’t know how great…
For this Pop Up event there was four photographers who would each give a seminar,
not just any old four, but four of the world’s best in Gregory Heisler, Zach Arias, Joe McNally and David Hobby.
I have been a landscape photographer for many years but recently I have moved more in to portraiture and the use of Off Camera Flash, a very good friend from a social network site pointed me in the direction of Zach Arias and particularly his excellent “One Light Workshop” DVD and also David Hobby’s “Lighting In Layers” DVD and his fantastic blog Strobist.com
I had discovered Joe McNally on YouTube and became a huge fan and came to
love Gregory Heisler’s work through his countless Time Magazine covers. All these guys use flash in such a way that leave most photographers drool.
MOTIVATING THE PRACTICAL…
There were two streams going on over the weekend, pink and grey. I was in the grey so
first up for us was Gregory Heisler.
This is a man who has achieved so much in his career it’s mind boggling,
he has photographed many US Presidents, “A” List Celebrities’and the world’s top
sports personalities and is one of the world’s most respected photographers, so
much so when Time Magazine call him he doesn’t have a brief, they know they’re
going to get a stunning cover. Yet he’s just so…normal! Very humble and cool guy, he certainly didn’t take no for an answer when he started out in this career.
He began the session, telling us about some of his favourite and most iconic
images, how he lit them and the way he used the light that may already be in the
scene (known as the practical), from a table lamp to the neon signs on the skyscrapers above Manhattan for example.
In his talk he would say how he would “Motivate the practical” to make it
seem that the whole scene was lit by the existing light and not his light which
was of course where it was really coming from, very clever stuff and the guy was funny too, I mean proper laugh out loud funny. As he was going through some of his images that were being displayed on a big screen (white wall) one of former US President Bill Clinton appeared taken in The Whitehouse, Greg had gone for a low angle composition so that he could get the curve of the Oval Office in the frame, but as the image appeared, he said that he was so in awe of Clinton that he just got down on his knees, the whole room erupted in laughter. After his talk, which over ran and we didn’t care, he then gave an impromptu demonstration of how he would light a particular portrait; we were actually watching him work! We haven’t even had lunch yet…
IT AINT WOTCHA GOT IT’S THE WAY THATCHA DO IT…
After lunch it was the turn of Zach Arias, I have to admit that I was really looking
forward to this. Zach is an awesome music photographer from Atlanta and is a no-nonsense kind a guy, it was his “One Light Workshop” DVD that has really got me into off camera flash, as he says, get one light, learn everything about that one light, before you even think about adding another.
His talk was more about “Gear Hacking” in other words getting fantastic images by
using cheap alternative to expensive softboxes and point and shoot camera through an old 5x4 he got for free, taped to it with gaffer tape. Yep that’s right a point and shoot, a disguarded old lens, gaffer tape, bin bags and a bed sheet and he got just stunning pictures with that simple set up, he did say however that it’s not something he would do when shooting a paying client, but most of the things he had used in the talk he used on shoots at some time or other. I liked how Zach was pretty much making it up as he went along, which he freely admitted to, it was fresh and unscripted, natural and funny, he moves fast and thinks on his feet and gets the job done in such a way that you just think wow and probably have a little dribble running down your chin, perhaps that's just me… and all backed up with the saying “Gear is great but vision is better”
It was good to see that there was a bit of banter going on between the four of them too, Joe McNally was sitting in on Zach’s talk, Joe is renowned for using TTL (through the lens) flash, I guess when you use up to 250 of them, it’s OK, whereas Zack is a full manual kinda guy, after Zack had spotted Joe at the back of the room he asked us “You guys know what TTL stands for don’t you? That’s right Totally Totally Lame”
It was an amazing first day and to round it all off nicely we were all invited to a
mixer at a local pub which was very well attended including our esteemed
company. Bring on Sunday…
OFF TO A PROMISING START…
With breakfast at the hotel out of the way (and feeling that I probably should’ve got
back a little earlier than I did the night before), I found lots of enthusiasm from everybody as they looked forward to day two, which was Joe McNally and David Hobby.
As I said earlier, I first discovered Joe through YouTube where I had seen videos of him scaling ridiculously high skyscrapers hanging on by a wire and getting awesome images. Joe uses off camera flash a lot and thinks nothing of running over a hundred or so speedlights to light something like a swimming pool from underneath the water, he has 35 years of experience and more National Geographic covers than I’ve had hot dinners, those of you who know me know that a lot!
In a way that was similar to Zach Arias the previous day, Joe was simply going to fly with whatever happens; throwing a dart I think he said… We got off to a promising start as technical difficulties hampered the photos he took as they wouldn’t transfer straight on to the big screen (white wall) and his radio mic kept failing, but they persevered and eventually the photo’s worked but the mic carried on failing. As with the others, we were treated to viewing some of Joe’s favourite and iconic images from his career, then he got on with doing a live demonstration…
He photographed various volunteers from the room, where for once I was happy with
my looks as I didn’t get chosen. Here we were in a typical lecture room with awful décor and terrible lighting for photography but the images he got using several different lighting set ups were stunning. Joe explained that using off camera flash means that with your settings you have to start somewhere, just to get a baseline then modify and fine tune your settings from your starting point. He’d fire a shot at his subject and up it popped on the screen somewhat under exposed “That’s a promising start” he’d say, which made me feel great as I make a lot of “promising starts”, he just got the end with stunning effect a lot faster than I do. With each new subject came a new “promising start” and with each new subject a stunning finish was achieved.
To see one of the best photographers in the world go about his business was
simply inspirational to me as a photographer. The high point for me and many others
was a photograph of a young lady who had beautiful long auburn wavy hair, which
would be key to the image.
She would play the part of a movie director who was nominated for an award and Joe
was called up to do the shoot, remember we are in a drab poorly lit room for
photography. He asked her to sit on the steps in the centre aisle and with the use of six speedlights, two for the subject – one above through a small softbox and one below fired into a silver reflector placed on the floor, two placed behind her – one a few steps up directly behind her with a blue gel/filter attached to mimic a projector light and one nearer the back facing the rear wall and with a red gel/filter attached and two borrowed from the audience that had CTO (colour temperature orange) gels/filters attached, the guys would hold these high at arm’s length and point them towards Joe so that they would be above our (the audience) heads, as he took the image it popped up on the screen, straight from camera with no post editing to the most audible gasps from the audience, including me, I’ve ever heard. It was truly an amazing shot, done right there before our eyes with no preparation, no post editing, in a typical drab lecture room with poor light and that image could’ve gone straight to the cover of a magazine.
Make no mistake; Joe McNally is a top class
photographer…
WHY ARE YOU A PHOTOGRAPHER…
After lunch and we’d all recovered from the morning session it was time for the last
one run by David Hobby, commonly known as The Strobist.
David would be quick to tell you that it’s his blog that’s the strobist,
he is David Hobby, but I would highly recommend that you check out the blog,
particularly the Lighting 101 at thestrobist.com
Sadly I couldn’t stay for the whole of this talk as with all the others, Joe’s talk
had over run, not that we had any problem with that! I made my apologies to
David before he got started, it was also a good excuse to go and shake the man’s
hand.
The guy is so cool, we had a joke where he said that he would make some controversial comment and I would just up and leave, he’d say “What you’re leaving?” and told me not to look back just walk out and raise my finger, I didn’t of course as I would be forever known as the guy who the Strobist the finger and figured it probably wouldn’t have done me any favours… but then again!
Good to know that as with all the others, he’s a really cool guy.
His talk was completely different to the other three, the genius of off camera flash
wasn’t going to teach us about light and that was a master stroke.
David’s talk was more about the business of photography and what it means to be a photographer 2013, incredibly detailed and thought provoking, using his own personal journey from when he left the Baltimore Sun as a staff photographer to setting up the strobist blog, questioning why he does what he does and asking us all to do the same, he gave out some brilliant advice, some of which is covered on his Lighting In Layers DVD, although I have to admit that I usually fast forward that part, but now I’m going to really listen as this guy knows what he’s talking about and makes perfect sense.
WE NOW HAVE A RELATIONSHIP…
Until two weeks ago I had never heard of Gulf Photo Plus, one Saturday night I saw a
tweet and thought “this looks interesting” and looked at the GPPLondon Pop Up Event website, with instant drool I was retweeting and facebooking it and saying how I would move heaven and earth to go if it ever comes back as I just couldn’t afford it this time. Two days later my wonderful wife asked me if I’d like to go as an early birthday present
(I’m 50 in five months), she now has only one hand!
So thanks to my Missis, I was able to attend and enjoy what was a fantastic experience that will stay with me forever in the company and learning from four of the world’s best photographers along with fellow photographers from around the globe, some of which I’ve since connected with on twitter, in the words of Gregory Heisler “we now have a relationship”
Thank you Gulf Photo Plus for bringing it to London, you guys put on an awesome
weekend!
Don’t just take my word for it either go to twitter and search
#GPPLondon.
was held in London during the weekend of September 28/29 2013.
GPP’s main event is run every year in Dubai, where the best photographers
in the world get together for a week’s worth of seminars and workshops and is
regarded by many as the best of its kind, after attending the weekend Pop Up
event, I’m left in no doubt to that claim.
#GPPLondon was held at King’s College, right opposite The Shard, which was handy as my hotel was a fifteen minute walk away, so all I had to do to find the venue was
to look up, I wasn’t going to get lost in London…
I arrived in town on Friday afternoon, so I had time to go and check out King’s College as I didn’t want to be late on Saturday morning, once I got there I met the wonderful Hala, she is one of the organisers of GPP and was so warm, friendly and approachable, I knew I was in for a great weekend, just didn’t know how great…
For this Pop Up event there was four photographers who would each give a seminar,
not just any old four, but four of the world’s best in Gregory Heisler, Zach Arias, Joe McNally and David Hobby.
I have been a landscape photographer for many years but recently I have moved more in to portraiture and the use of Off Camera Flash, a very good friend from a social network site pointed me in the direction of Zach Arias and particularly his excellent “One Light Workshop” DVD and also David Hobby’s “Lighting In Layers” DVD and his fantastic blog Strobist.com
I had discovered Joe McNally on YouTube and became a huge fan and came to
love Gregory Heisler’s work through his countless Time Magazine covers. All these guys use flash in such a way that leave most photographers drool.
MOTIVATING THE PRACTICAL…
There were two streams going on over the weekend, pink and grey. I was in the grey so
first up for us was Gregory Heisler.
This is a man who has achieved so much in his career it’s mind boggling,
he has photographed many US Presidents, “A” List Celebrities’and the world’s top
sports personalities and is one of the world’s most respected photographers, so
much so when Time Magazine call him he doesn’t have a brief, they know they’re
going to get a stunning cover. Yet he’s just so…normal! Very humble and cool guy, he certainly didn’t take no for an answer when he started out in this career.
He began the session, telling us about some of his favourite and most iconic
images, how he lit them and the way he used the light that may already be in the
scene (known as the practical), from a table lamp to the neon signs on the skyscrapers above Manhattan for example.
In his talk he would say how he would “Motivate the practical” to make it
seem that the whole scene was lit by the existing light and not his light which
was of course where it was really coming from, very clever stuff and the guy was funny too, I mean proper laugh out loud funny. As he was going through some of his images that were being displayed on a big screen (white wall) one of former US President Bill Clinton appeared taken in The Whitehouse, Greg had gone for a low angle composition so that he could get the curve of the Oval Office in the frame, but as the image appeared, he said that he was so in awe of Clinton that he just got down on his knees, the whole room erupted in laughter. After his talk, which over ran and we didn’t care, he then gave an impromptu demonstration of how he would light a particular portrait; we were actually watching him work! We haven’t even had lunch yet…
IT AINT WOTCHA GOT IT’S THE WAY THATCHA DO IT…
After lunch it was the turn of Zach Arias, I have to admit that I was really looking
forward to this. Zach is an awesome music photographer from Atlanta and is a no-nonsense kind a guy, it was his “One Light Workshop” DVD that has really got me into off camera flash, as he says, get one light, learn everything about that one light, before you even think about adding another.
His talk was more about “Gear Hacking” in other words getting fantastic images by
using cheap alternative to expensive softboxes and point and shoot camera through an old 5x4 he got for free, taped to it with gaffer tape. Yep that’s right a point and shoot, a disguarded old lens, gaffer tape, bin bags and a bed sheet and he got just stunning pictures with that simple set up, he did say however that it’s not something he would do when shooting a paying client, but most of the things he had used in the talk he used on shoots at some time or other. I liked how Zach was pretty much making it up as he went along, which he freely admitted to, it was fresh and unscripted, natural and funny, he moves fast and thinks on his feet and gets the job done in such a way that you just think wow and probably have a little dribble running down your chin, perhaps that's just me… and all backed up with the saying “Gear is great but vision is better”
It was good to see that there was a bit of banter going on between the four of them too, Joe McNally was sitting in on Zach’s talk, Joe is renowned for using TTL (through the lens) flash, I guess when you use up to 250 of them, it’s OK, whereas Zack is a full manual kinda guy, after Zack had spotted Joe at the back of the room he asked us “You guys know what TTL stands for don’t you? That’s right Totally Totally Lame”
It was an amazing first day and to round it all off nicely we were all invited to a
mixer at a local pub which was very well attended including our esteemed
company. Bring on Sunday…
OFF TO A PROMISING START…
With breakfast at the hotel out of the way (and feeling that I probably should’ve got
back a little earlier than I did the night before), I found lots of enthusiasm from everybody as they looked forward to day two, which was Joe McNally and David Hobby.
As I said earlier, I first discovered Joe through YouTube where I had seen videos of him scaling ridiculously high skyscrapers hanging on by a wire and getting awesome images. Joe uses off camera flash a lot and thinks nothing of running over a hundred or so speedlights to light something like a swimming pool from underneath the water, he has 35 years of experience and more National Geographic covers than I’ve had hot dinners, those of you who know me know that a lot!
In a way that was similar to Zach Arias the previous day, Joe was simply going to fly with whatever happens; throwing a dart I think he said… We got off to a promising start as technical difficulties hampered the photos he took as they wouldn’t transfer straight on to the big screen (white wall) and his radio mic kept failing, but they persevered and eventually the photo’s worked but the mic carried on failing. As with the others, we were treated to viewing some of Joe’s favourite and iconic images from his career, then he got on with doing a live demonstration…
He photographed various volunteers from the room, where for once I was happy with
my looks as I didn’t get chosen. Here we were in a typical lecture room with awful décor and terrible lighting for photography but the images he got using several different lighting set ups were stunning. Joe explained that using off camera flash means that with your settings you have to start somewhere, just to get a baseline then modify and fine tune your settings from your starting point. He’d fire a shot at his subject and up it popped on the screen somewhat under exposed “That’s a promising start” he’d say, which made me feel great as I make a lot of “promising starts”, he just got the end with stunning effect a lot faster than I do. With each new subject came a new “promising start” and with each new subject a stunning finish was achieved.
To see one of the best photographers in the world go about his business was
simply inspirational to me as a photographer. The high point for me and many others
was a photograph of a young lady who had beautiful long auburn wavy hair, which
would be key to the image.
She would play the part of a movie director who was nominated for an award and Joe
was called up to do the shoot, remember we are in a drab poorly lit room for
photography. He asked her to sit on the steps in the centre aisle and with the use of six speedlights, two for the subject – one above through a small softbox and one below fired into a silver reflector placed on the floor, two placed behind her – one a few steps up directly behind her with a blue gel/filter attached to mimic a projector light and one nearer the back facing the rear wall and with a red gel/filter attached and two borrowed from the audience that had CTO (colour temperature orange) gels/filters attached, the guys would hold these high at arm’s length and point them towards Joe so that they would be above our (the audience) heads, as he took the image it popped up on the screen, straight from camera with no post editing to the most audible gasps from the audience, including me, I’ve ever heard. It was truly an amazing shot, done right there before our eyes with no preparation, no post editing, in a typical drab lecture room with poor light and that image could’ve gone straight to the cover of a magazine.
Make no mistake; Joe McNally is a top class
photographer…
WHY ARE YOU A PHOTOGRAPHER…
After lunch and we’d all recovered from the morning session it was time for the last
one run by David Hobby, commonly known as The Strobist.
David would be quick to tell you that it’s his blog that’s the strobist,
he is David Hobby, but I would highly recommend that you check out the blog,
particularly the Lighting 101 at thestrobist.com
Sadly I couldn’t stay for the whole of this talk as with all the others, Joe’s talk
had over run, not that we had any problem with that! I made my apologies to
David before he got started, it was also a good excuse to go and shake the man’s
hand.
The guy is so cool, we had a joke where he said that he would make some controversial comment and I would just up and leave, he’d say “What you’re leaving?” and told me not to look back just walk out and raise my finger, I didn’t of course as I would be forever known as the guy who the Strobist the finger and figured it probably wouldn’t have done me any favours… but then again!
Good to know that as with all the others, he’s a really cool guy.
His talk was completely different to the other three, the genius of off camera flash
wasn’t going to teach us about light and that was a master stroke.
David’s talk was more about the business of photography and what it means to be a photographer 2013, incredibly detailed and thought provoking, using his own personal journey from when he left the Baltimore Sun as a staff photographer to setting up the strobist blog, questioning why he does what he does and asking us all to do the same, he gave out some brilliant advice, some of which is covered on his Lighting In Layers DVD, although I have to admit that I usually fast forward that part, but now I’m going to really listen as this guy knows what he’s talking about and makes perfect sense.
WE NOW HAVE A RELATIONSHIP…
Until two weeks ago I had never heard of Gulf Photo Plus, one Saturday night I saw a
tweet and thought “this looks interesting” and looked at the GPPLondon Pop Up Event website, with instant drool I was retweeting and facebooking it and saying how I would move heaven and earth to go if it ever comes back as I just couldn’t afford it this time. Two days later my wonderful wife asked me if I’d like to go as an early birthday present
(I’m 50 in five months), she now has only one hand!
So thanks to my Missis, I was able to attend and enjoy what was a fantastic experience that will stay with me forever in the company and learning from four of the world’s best photographers along with fellow photographers from around the globe, some of which I’ve since connected with on twitter, in the words of Gregory Heisler “we now have a relationship”
Thank you Gulf Photo Plus for bringing it to London, you guys put on an awesome
weekend!
Don’t just take my word for it either go to twitter and search
#GPPLondon.