Last Saturday I had a rare chance to join in an outdoor model shooting workshop, which was conducted by an up and coming local photographer, Anthony Mendoza Barlan. Anthony specializes in shooting artistic beautiful portraits of model, usually conceptual and abstract in nature. The workshop was a paid workshop, and there were about 20 participants. I did not come in as a workshop participant though, I was actually there to help out a friend, KS Du, with a task to shoot behind the scenes images of the entire workshop.
It was a blast being able to move around freely and document the event, and at the same time, I managed to steal some quick frames for myself.
All images were taken with Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm F1.8 on PEN E-P5.
Looking at the images above, they were almost straight out of the camera, with minor post-processing. Yes, I know those are probably not good portrait shots, and I have plenty to improve and learn. Technically, I was not shooting at the best positions as I did my best not get in the way of the participants and only shot from a distance using the Olympus 45mm F1.8. The participants were recommended to use wider angle lenses to cover more of the beautiful background (I decided not to, to stay behind and not interfere with the workshop). Further to that, there were external flash with softboxes set up for use, which would have created more dramatic outcome. I shot all the above shots with only available light.
Photography Workshop organized and conducted by Anthony Mendoza Barlan
Official fashion Designer, Hair and Make Up Artist: Hilde Marie Johansen (Scandinavian Make Up Academy)
Models: Diana and Anna (in the above photographs).
This was the original promotional visual for the workshop:
It was an eye opening experiece for me and certainly very new to me. As I have told my friend, KS Du, it was as if I was stepping into another planet, everything felt so alien to me. Observation and learning were something I did and it is a good thing to expose myself to different genres of photography. Anthony was doing a great job directing the models as they pose for shots, and coordinating the whole event. Believe me, it was no easy task to take care of so many people! On top of the participants, there were make up artists, the lighting crew, video production crew, etc.
It was a lot of fun, and surely something refreshing to me, to both be able to witness, and shoot a little bit of something I do not usually do.
The following are the images of behind the scenes from the workshop.
The star of the day, Anthony
One for the album
The rest of the photos from BTS are as follows, click on the thumbnails to enlarge them.
