We were very honored to have the fantastic filmmaker Vlad Chaloupka of vladfilms.com and Anna Kuperberg document our recent Foundation Workshop in San Miguel de Allende.

Thank you Vlad and Anna!

What’s the Foundation Workshop all about?  In the students’ words:

http://fworkshop.com/2012/02/luis-masyebra/

http://fworkshop.com/2012/02/arody-sanchez/

http://fworkshop.com/2012/02/shauna-heron/

http://fworkshop.com/2012/02/kip-beelman/

http://fworkshop.com/2012/02/carolina-rivera/

See you in 2013!

http://www.masyebra.com/?p=7310

Photography and words by Luis Masyebra

When I registered to Foundation Mexico 2 (FM2) one year ago (!), the worst hurdle I had to overcome is the mystery and lack of detail that the presale process was showing: merely a quite-long list of world’s best wedding photographers and a scarce five-line-long Unique Selling Proposition was to be found. In exchange, the (probably) most expensive workshop in the field, including the cost to travel from Spain and be hosted in Mexico. But my hunch was there, so I applied. It would not be the last hunch to turn into awesome reality… At the end of it all, the proposition was indeed fullfilled, but that USP was all but a lie: FM2 is not about photography. It is about life, vision, creation, responsibility, compromise, growth and emotions. Yours, theirs, everybodies.

And then, the Perfect Storm for me. Five days of adventure with my (prior) Photo Gods at my complete disposal working as mentors: Ben Chrisman, Brett Butterstein, Citlalli Rico and Fer Juaristi. I had had the honor to personally meet Fer and Citlalli before; I knew about the elegance and grace that pours from Ci’s heart to her work, and the genius that bursts out of Fer’s bottle with each of his mind-bending shots. However, seeing these two-of-a-kind falling back into secondary roles with absolute modesty and total wish of service was a gasp. Leading roles fell on Ben and Brett, whose works are absolute crap in comparison to their teaching skills: they were 120% committed to obliterate my prior self in order to show me how deep the rabbit hole goes. They pushed me beyond my own fears – and burned the hell out of them.

I’ll never praise them as photographers again. Instead, I will highlight the sheer example of teaching efficiency, honesty, compromise, humbleness and genie that this team has shown to me/us all. And friendship. After bleeding the hell out of our’s and their own forces, they were always the last man standing to offer you a fresh, tasty beer and invite you to stand up again, try harder, go beyond. Or give you a true hug, if it may be. Confirmed: similar experiences happened in each team at FM2, with each student. I never gave a damn about the shots I would achieve there, but I’ll show you two of them – probably not the best, but surely the most significant ones to me. My team knows why. And Brett. After the tsunami, nothing is the same anymore. The true task is how you face your own path after seeing the light and be a true photographer for the first time in your life. A creator. That is serious shit no-one shall be able to avoid after Foundation. Screw you, FM2 team! You have pushed me beyond my Darkest Side, and there is no escape but by going deeper into the rabbit hole.

You should be very proud of the bunch of personas you have gathered around you, Huy. They all share the joy to sow our own futures within ourselves. And they surely achieved that with me at FM2.

Enjoy.

P.S. Sorry for the hassle: this is probably the longest post I’ve written in years. But if you have read this far, go do yourself a favor and start saving as-in-now for Foundation Mexico 3.

:: :: :: :: :: ::

Cuando me inscribí al taller de Foundation Mexico 2 (FM2) hace un año, el peor obstáculo que tuve que superar es el misterio y la falta de detalle que el proceso de preventa mostraba: apenas una lista más o menos larga de referentes mundiales en la fotografía de bodas y una Propuesta Única de Venta de literalmente cinco líneas de largo que se antojaba escasa a todas luces. A cambio, asumir el coste del taller más caro que existe (probablemente) sobre el tema, debiendo contar además con el coste que implica viajar desde España y alojarse en Mexico. Pero hice caso a mi corazonada y me suscribí. No sería la última corazonada en convertirse en increíble realidad… Al final del taller la proposición se había cumplido, pero en realidad era una mentira: FM2 no va de fotografía. FM2 va de la vida, de buscar una visión, de crear, de tu responsabilidad, de compromiso, de crecer y de las emociones. Las tuyas, las suyas, las de todos.

Y entonces se generó la Tormenta Perfecta para mí en forma de cinco días de aventura con mis (anteriores) dioses fotográficos a mi completa disposición como mentores: Ben Chrisman, Brett Butterstein, Citlalli Rico y Fer Juaristi. Yo había tenido el honor de conocer personalmente a Fer y Citlalli antes; sabía de la elegancia y la gracia que emana Citlalli con su trabajo, y el genio que brota de la botella de Fer en cada uno de sus alucinantes disparos. Sin embargo, ver a estos dos personajes asumir papeles secundarios con una modestia absoluta y una total vocación de servicio fue asombroso. Los papeles principales cayeron sobre Ben y Brett, cuyas obras son una porquería en comparación con sus habilidades para la enseñanza, su compromiso en buscar mi límite, borrar mi anterior yo para mostrarme cuán profunda es realmente la madriguera del conejo. Me hicieron ir más allá de mis miedos. Y los quemaron.

Jamás volveré a alabar a ninguno de ellos como fotógrafos. Siempre antepondré el enorme ejemplo que este equipo nos ha dado en cuanto a capacidad de enseñanza, honestidad, compromiso, humildad y genialidad. Y su amistad. Después de llevarnos al límite de nuestras – y sus propias fuerzas, ellos seguían en pié para ofrecerte una cerveza fresca e invitarte a dar un paso más, superarte. O darte un abrazo sincero, si es lo que se tercia. Confirmado: experiencias similares ocurrieron en cada equipo, con cada estudiante. Nunca me importaron realmente las fotos que saldrían de aquí, pero voy a mostraros dos de ellas. Probablemente no las mejores, pero sin duda las más significativas para mí. Mi equipo sabe porqué. Y Brett también lo sabe. Después del tsunami, nada volverá a ser lo mismo. El verdadero problema es cómo hacer frente a mi propio camino después de ver la luz y ser un fotógrafo de verdad por primera vez en mi vida. Un creador. Palabras mayores como para poder obviarlas de aquí en adelante. ¡Que os jodan, equipo de FM2! Me habéis empujado a mi lado más oscuro, y ahora sé que solo podré salir… ahondando en la madriguera del conejo.

Debes estar orgulloso de la panda de personajes que has reunido a tu alrededor, Huy. Todos ellos comparten la alegría de sembrar la semilla de nuestro propio futuro en nosotros mismos. Y te aseguro que conmigo lo lograron.

Disfrutad.

P.D. Perdón por el coñazo: ésta es probablemente la entrada más larga que he escrito en años. Pero si has leído hasta aquí, hazte un favor a ti mismo y empieza a ahorrar ya mismo para apuntarte a Foundation Mexico 3.

http://www.simplyshaunaphotography.com/2012/02/through-the-fire-foundation-workshop-10/

http://www.arodysanchez.com/photography-workshop/foundation-mexico-2/

Photograph and words by Arody Sanchez

Mi primer contacto con el workshop de Foundation fue el año pasado en julio, moría por asistir al de San Miguel de Allende, el primer de los talleres (sino es que el único) más importante de fotografía en México. Siempre por recomendación de Fer Juaristi quien es la persona que me ha inspirado a llevar a cabo cada paso que doy, y le escribí a Huy. Al mismo tiempo planee mi viaje a San Francisco y no pude inscribirme en ese momento. Pensé, será 2013… ¿2013? Lejísimos… pff.

En noviembre, un día en mi twitter aparece @ferjuaristi hablando de los últimos lugares del Foundation… Y cerrando los ojos, esperando lo mejor, me inscribí. De pronto ya era parte de la lista de estudiantes y al verla, me fui para atrás al ver tantos nombres de grandes profesionales. Todo llega y la semana del FM2 estaba frente a mí, recibí la gran noticia de que Ana Arellano sería parte del equipo y qué mejor oportunidad, verla después de dos años de compartir con los Wedrockers en Holbox, estaba feliz.

Llegando a SMA, me propuse no esperar nada, explorar y hacer mi máximo. El primer contacto con todos los organizadores fue increíble, cómo en un espacio podían haber juntado ¡a tantos! Primero conocí a Maria Martínez y Jorge Baez de Valencia, un encanto y gran pareja; Adrian Tomadín, amenísimo; Danny Cuevas, con quien compartí mi proceso en el equipo; Maria Velarde que nos ayudó a conseguir el hotel y fue fantástico; Carlos Alonso, volviéndolo a ver después del SEFOME de 2009 como si fuera ayer; Alec con su apariencia de americano y hablando perfecto español; Juan Navarro de Cancún; Zoe Lammin de Madrid quien es un encanto conocer, bien dice Daniel Aguilar que podría escucharte hablar toda la vida; Carlos Vaquero, un carisma andante; Fran Cabades con su sonrisa única; Susana Barberá “super buenísima onda”; Virginia Gimeno con ese aire de ternura y valiente; Arturo Ortiz quien también pareciera lo conozco de siempre; Luis Masyebra quien me ha inspirado a dar ese paso; Ana Cruz, una chica increíble de León, espero verte pronto; Luis Vazquez Maseda quien se llevó mi corazón esa semana; Joseba Sandoval, que aún lastimado hizo un excelente trabajo; Daniela Garza con quien compartí el proceso “foundation” y Nacho Pérez, que con su sonrisa lo decía todo… Así fueron llegando cada uno, todos esperando conocernos y compartir nuestro camino hasta ahí.

Al recibir la noticia de que mis mentores serían Ben Chrisman, Brett Butterstein, Citlalli Rico y Fer Juaristi, morí, literal. La lista de estudiantes con los que compartiría mi camino fueron Jorge Baez, Joseba Sandoval, Daniela Garza, Danny Cuevas, Luis Masyebra y Carlos Alonso. Cada uno me dejó en mi trayecto algo muy importante que ni siquiera había considerado en mi camino y si, me abrieron los ojos.

Los dos días de asignación fueron difíciles, es duro vivir tu tarea muchas horas, a mi me tocó la Sociedad Protectora de Animales, donde reciben a perros y gatos en estados deplorables, un llorar a cada rato pero el enfrentamiento de ese sentimiento más las horas de trabajo más las de crítica nos derrumbaron siempre a las 2-3am… Gracias Rosy, doctora veterinaria por todo el corazón que deja en cada uno de los perritos que entran a su mesa, Aida y Lucy por todas sus atenciones, Cirilo por contarme su historia, a los voluntarios que van sin ningún interés a pasear a los perros y a cada uno de los personajes que viven diario en este círculo.

Gracias infinitas Ben por tu tranquilidad, nadie es más concreto que tu para decir algo simple y directo, gran maestro. De nuevo me tocó compartir una historia más contigo Fer y estoy agradecida por eso. Brett me aventaste al ruedo con armas, viendo más allá de la simple foto con la ayuda de la bella Citla, eres grande, tus palabras siempre serán claras y en modo “shuffle” en mi cabeza.

Me dieron armas para valorar lo que hay dentro y fuera de mí, todo lo que no hace ningún otro workshop. Todo tiene su tiempo y definitivamente este, era el mío. Un error habría sido no tomarlo ni escuchar mi corazón de nuevo con ese tweet de Fer que vi un día de noviembre. Si algo te dice que asistas, no lo pienses más, es tuyo. Me llevé a TODOS en el corazón y TODO lo que había en Foundation para mí.

Gracias Huy. Gracias Sergio. Y a todo el equipo de FM2: Katrina Wallace, Kelly Rashka, Ana Arellano, Erin Chrisman, Anna Kuperberg, Daniel Aguilar, Jorge Tinajero, Jesse y Andy, Andrew Mejia, Vladimir Chaloupka por el video único que tenemos de la experiencia y a Vinicius Matos por fotos increíbles de nuestro viaje por Foundation. ¡Gracias por mis fotos! Compañeros y amigos: Admiré cada uno de sus trabajos, hemos logrado muchísimo a pesar de que llegamos en blanco. En definitiva habrá un antes y después, luego de vivir Foundation.

http://kipbeelmanphotography.com/foundation-workshop/

Photograph and words by Kip Beelman

It was this day a week ago that I was en route to Glen Rose, TX (population 2,444) via Dallas, TX to attend the Foundation Workshop.  Foundation is billed as “the original and toughest photojournalism workshop for photographers” and in addition to having some of the most renown wedding photographers in the world associated with it, it’s also got a reasonably high barrier of entry at $3,900.  The high price tag and its reputation for making grown men cry limits this to a rare few each year that are willing to take this unique challenge.

Further along I’ll recount some of my thoughts and highlights from my time in Glen Rose, but first I wanted to briefly summarize what one might expect to return home with as it relates to my clients and to all of my photographer friends.

For clients:  I’ve come home with new eyes.  Well, they’re the same, but I now use them in an entirely new way.  Prior to Foundation, the main focus with my camera at a wedding were the portraits and trying to make them a nice balance of pretty and creative.  The other parts of the day, like prep and the reception, were not really where my creative energy was directed.  Now my brain has been completely reprogrammed to see beyond my subjects whilst seeking moments, moments, moments ALL DAY and be there with the right lens, at the right angle to produce a beautifully clean composition of a once-in-a-lifetime moment.  Thank you Foundation!

For photographers:  Foundation is as tough, if not tougher, than you’ve heard about.  After a full day of shooting and hours and hours and hours of individual critiques of my team’s daily take, I was averaging about 1.5 to two hours of sleep each night.  The critique sessions are ruthless, uncompromising, and incredibly educating.  Your team leader and mentors are there to push you and push you hard.  They are teaching you a new discipline.  You’ll probably cry.  From the challenge, from exhaustion, from frustration, or in my case, from elation – The unbridled joy that washed over me when my team leader said I made a great frame or the overwhelming feeling of relief and accomplishment when my slideshow was played on closing night both opened the floodgates.

Foundation began Saturday night for all but a few stragglers as we gathered at a local Glen Rose restaurant to meet our teams. Even on a busy weekend night we nearly took over the entire restaurant as there were 6 teams of six students that each had a team leader, two mentors and an assistant.  In addition, there were 3 coordinators, two assignment editors, 2 counselors (yes, counselors) and a dedicated photographer there to document the workshop, faculty and students.  That’s a faculty-to-student ratio of nearly 1:1 and key for the kind of concentrated, intense learning that the week would bring.

Sunday morning was pretty mellow and consisted of some co-mingling with other students before an orientation and then breaking off into teams.  Our team dug in for portfolio critiques that ran deep into the small hours of the morning while receiving our individual assignments along the way, sometime late Sunday night/early Monday morning.  Mine was Meals on Wheels and I was to report Monday morning at 8am to the Executive Director of the local the senior center 40 minutes north of Glen Rose in Granbury, TX where the meals were prepared, packaged and sent out on their routes for delivery.

8am isn’t too rough, right?  Well, our team leader, JVS, expected each of us to travel to the starting point of our respective story to capture sunrise.  He’s a firm believer that nothing represents a new beginning like a sunrise and he personally aims to see at least five per week.  This became a part of shooting each day for our entire team of six and something I’ve brought home to Seattle with me… Officially a sunrise fanboy now.

While some of the recurring mantras from the Sunday night critique were rattling around in my head as I began to work on Monday, I was pretty much approaching the task as I would any assignment, event or wedding… With no discipline or pre-assessment of what and where I wanted to focus my narrative.  The process of my assignment on Monday was to document the movement of freshly prepared meals into coolers, the loading of the coolers into a volunteer’s personal vehicle, driving a route according to a list of recipients, capturing either a hand off of the meals at the door or venturing inside in some cases, and then returning back to the senior center once the route was complete to drop off the coolers. The day wrapped up at roughly 2pm.

The two greatest challenges I faced were that the interactions were often as brief as 2 seconds and there was a nine stop shift in light between the exposure for outside (F/8, 1/2000th, ISO 200) and inside (F/4, 1/125th, ISO 3200).  Well, my greatest challenge is really that I was running around like a headless chicken just trying to get anything into my camera.

How did I fare during the critique session on Monday night?  Epic FAIL.  I was doing it all wrong:   Poor composition, consistently missing moments, exposures that were all over the place and generally not close enough to my subjects.  Tuesday’s shoot would be more of the same process, but with food prep beginning at 5:30am added to the mix and a new mental focus derived from the critique of the night before.

My efforts on Tuesday broke through on a couple of levels, but I was mired in technical difficulties:  My depth of field was too shallow, my shutter was too slow, my exposures where still all over the place, my color during food prep was being ruined by fluorescent lights, and I was missing focus on nearly half my shots.  It was almost as if I was getting worse and it DID NOT feel good.  I have to give some extra thanks to Ryan Jones, one of my team mentors, for the focus mode exercises outside the Holiday Inn Express at 3:30am Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, as the workshop schedule was laid out, was supposed to be a pick-up day if you still needed a few frames to round out your slideshow.  In the case of our team, each of us were sent out on Wednesday for an entire day of shooting.  And thank goodness as I finally started to overcome technical issues and began making some useful frames.  The high-five I got from JVS that night during the critique about a specific frame I made sent me over the edge and I couldn’t prevent my eyes from flooding – It was the first time in a span of roughly 50 hours of hard work that I felt like I had finally done something right. A tiny, fleeting win.

Thursday is designated to finalize slideshows for the final presentations later that night, not for shooting.  That did not prove to be true in my case as JVS sent me out to make a few more frames that he thought my story needed.  Foundation Workshop 10 had a private Facebook group and I can tell from the chatter on this day that there was only one other person out shooting on Thursday.  And from that chatter, it appears as if she had to go make one specific frame.

Me?  I was camped out at 5:45am in the field of a derelict house adjacent to a cemetery opposite the senior center to try and get a sunrise establishing shot.  The fog was dense and it was looking like I’d be returning to Glen Rose empty handed.  At about 6am I heard voices in the cemetery and saw the heads of a couple of people in the distance… I had to check that I wasn’t imagining things. I laid low as I had to shimmy through a barbwire fence to get to my position and though abandoned, was on private property. Later and still under the foggy shroud of pre-dawn, cracking brush coming from the direction of the house (We had been warned during orientation to be extremely careful when going on to private property as the large majority of Texans are armed and WILL shoot you for trespassing) had my spine tingling a bit.

I photographed through the fog with a giant tree tree in the foreground as an anchor in my composition.  The senior center in the distance was juuuust barely visible.  The sun kept climbing higher, but there was no burning red as it crested the horizon.  We were socked in.  I lost all sight of the senior center until the fog finally began to break open at 9:30am.  The whole exercise felt fruitless and that it was a giant failure.   Grr.

The food line fires up at 9:50am, so I high-tailed it through the barb wire and raced the 300 yards across the cemetery back to the senior center for one more trip out on the delivery routes to see what I could get.  By this stage of shooting on day 4 the bullet points of the critique, the things I’d learned, and the confidence I’d gained all started to coalesce and I was now shooting with purpose and making frames that I wanted to make.  The sensation of chasing the action and reactively firing at it had evolved into seeing what was about to happen and quickly, almost intuitively, choosing how I wanted to show it.  Things had clicked.

Fast forward to the slideshow in the motel conference room after a wonderful Texas barbecue dinner catered by Hammonds BBQ.  The work of my peers was truly inspiring to witness and I’ll never forget seeing frames so amazing that the entire room broke out in cheer again and again.  People talk about Foundation becoming your family and I felt deeply connected to each and every one of these people having gone through an incredibly challenging week together.

After each slideshow was complete and the lights went up, it was all I could do to keep from falling over; I was physically, mentally, creatively and emotionally spent.  Not even Ben Chrisman nor David Murry approaching me to commend me on my hard work or the loooooong, proud hug of my dear Jenny Jimenez could rally me.  While the party raged on until sunrise, I went to my room around 8:30pm and fell over dead in the desk chair and didn’t wake until 8am the next morning.  It was finally over.

But it’s nowhere close to over. It’s only just begun.  The friends I made, the family I now have, the new eyes, head and heart in which I now approach my work will never leave me.  That week in Glen Rose was transformative, enlightening, and incredibly inspiring.

Major thanks to my team leader JVS, mentor Ray Soemarsono, mentor Ryan Jones and assistant Jan Garcia.  Your tireless effort, high standards, razor sharp critique and commitment to our team are a thing of legend.

More testimonials from FW10 will likely be sprouting up online, but my dear friend Kate McElwee does a lovely job of recounting her experience as a fellow attendee.  Also worth reading is this incredible 2-part document (Part I, Part II) by Britt Bailey of Foundation Workshop 9.

The quotes shared throughout this post are not mine.  They play in the masthead slideshow of the Foundation Workshop website.  I’ve included them here, as quotes from previous students, because they couldn’t echo my thoughts and sentiments any better.

We’ve been asked to limit the images we show online to only two.  Here are the ones that I feel best represent my commitment to working hard and being fearless to make a frame that doesn’t come easy.

http://blog.cwrphotography.com/2012/02/10/passion-drama-art-foundation/

http://katemcelweeblog.com/2012/02/09/foundation-workshop/

Each year, we also gather for two days of learning and inspiration featuring fresh new talent and established professionals. Please join us at The Foundation Conference 2011 on November 7-8, 2011 in New Orleans.

We welcome all photographers!

The link to registration is available at http://www.fconference.com

Also, here are 2 links for submitting your images:

- 7 Images for the Huy & Ben Chrisman Photo Critique – Huy and Ben will be discussing your images at their presentation.  We’d like to keep the names of the photographers anonymous so strip all logos from your photos.  These images can be your faves, your best work, whatever… Each photographer attending FC2011 may submit a maximum of 7 images.  Please send in all images at once.   Deadline is November 1, 2011.

- 10 Images for the FC2011 Photography Competition - Each FC2011 participant is allowed to enter a maximum of 10 wedding images. Images must have been taken from Oct. 1, 2010 – Oct. 1, 2011.  Public judging is at the end of Day 2. Judges will comment on some of the images during the judging and select 11 images as “winners”.   Deadline is November 1, 2011.

Prizes: 10 winners will each receive a $100 credit from ProDPI Photo Lab. One other winner will be selected as the “Badass Best of Show” and will receive the grand prize of $1,000 credit from Finao Albums.

OFFICIAL SCHEDULE (subject to changes)

Saturday Nov. 5
7 pm – Unofficial dinner together – meet Sherry Pickerell at 7 pm at the Marriott lobby and we will go someplace for dinner.

Sunday Nov. 6
2 pm – Brainstorming Session With Huy: we will gather for a focus group/brainstorming session about Forum, Foundation, Fearless, and all things exciting and cool.  Meet at the Marriott Lobby at 2 pm and we will walk together over to the meeting at ACME Oyster House at 724 Iberville St

7 pm – 9 pm – Drinks with Friends: meet and greet at a small reception at ACME Oyster House at 724 Iberville St.  We will have an open bar and light snack of oysters, gumbo, fried fish, and jambalaya.

Monday Nov. 7

8:30 am – check in

9 am  - welcoming
9:30 am – David Murray
10:30 am – Ed Atrero & Jan Garcia
{lunch break – on your own}
1 pm – Kate Mefford
2 pm – Jenna + Tristan
{afternoon break – coffee, soft drinks, tea, refreshments will be served}
3:30 pm – Mark Pawlyszyn
4:30 pm – Ben Chrisman & Huy Photo Critique
after that – unauthorized and unorganized New Orleans revelry on your own

Tuesday Nov. 8
9:30 am – Sergio
10:30 am – Todd Laffler
{lunch break – on your own}
1:30 pm – Samo Rovan
2:30 pm – Gulnara
{afternoon break – coffee, soft drinks, tea, refreshments will be served}
4 pm – public judging of FC2011 Photo Competition
after that – more unauthorized New Orleans craziness??????

Get home safely!

]]> http://fworkshop.com/2011/09/the-foundation-conference-2011/feed/ 0 http://fworkshop.com/2011/04/the-foundation-workshop-exposed-an-inside-look-part-ii/ http://fworkshop.com/2011/04/the-foundation-workshop-exposed-an-inside-look-part-ii/#comments Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:14:41 +0000 admin http://fworkshop.com/?p=789 Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at THE FOUNDATION WORKSHOP, one of the most challenging and innovative workshops for wedding photographers in the world.

Thank you!!!!!! to Britt Bailey for her account at the Foundation Workshop 9  (held in February 2011 in Austin, TX)

Here’s Part II…

FW9 (Part II)
by Britt Bailey

Wednesday

This year the foundation workshop adjusted the schedule, starting the story assignments on Monday and adding a third possible shooting day on Wednesday.  I think the third shooting day was key for many students, especially those who had limited shooting hours beforehand or who had stories fall out from under them.

I sat in on one of Tyler Wirken’s team critiques on Wednesday morning, before he sent students back out to the field to work on their stories some more.   I hadn’t been there five minutes before I was pulling out my notebook and jotting down my first Tyler-ism from critique, “These still suck, but I’m ok with it.”  Said in the lighthearted and even tender way that Tyler has, which is half laugh and all kindness.

Later, with great enthusiasm, Tyler stopped at an image and leaned back, “This is big!  We’re solving your problems!  If you can only think of context first you’ll find your compositions a lot sooner.”

I learned that “Context” is the key word of Team Tyler. In the same way that “shoot with a purpose” was a  key phrase for Team Huy.  And Team Tyler uses deadpan humor to smooth the way in critiques.

“This is good.  This is good—ish,” said Tyler at another point leaning forward and smiling.

And, “I know you loved her outfit, but it doesn’t matter.”

And “This is totally it, but it’s not it.”

“More context.  Less movement.  Never leave.  Linger. Linger. Linger.  Look at her face.  You would have had a home run.  Look at her face.  Look at her expression.”

Later in a review of Citlalli Ricco’s images of the Broken Spoke, Tyler explained a missed opportunity by saying, “You did see it.  You just didn’t know you’d seen it.  Same thing as every other student on this team.”

Tyler went on to explain, “I’m theoretically in charge here, but I’m not.  I’m here to guide your vision.  Trust your instincts.  Trust yourself.”

Looking through a set of images of customers at the Broken Spoke, Tyler said, “I wouldn’t even have shot this picture, because they look like lawyers.  I don’t care about lawyers.  I care about cowboys.”

“Yay!” Citlalli said, “Now I want to go back.

Turns out, I did too.  I went out to watch Tyler mentor in the field Wednesday evening at the Broken Spoke.  Tyler was one of the first proponents of field visits by mentors at FW.  It’s hard for me to imagine what a different experience students had before field visits, when they were dropped off at their assignments and picked up at the end of the day.  Critiquing the images in the hotel room after the fact is great, and many breakthroughs can happen just by having your eyes opened to missed opportunities or persistent framing issues.  But a big part of what makes the Foundation Workshop so special is the hands on help of mentors in the field, who come out to see firsthand what students are up against and help coach them through their obstacles.  To me, trying to coach a student without this guidance would be like giving dancing lessons by critiquing photos of a student dancing.

So, I ate dinner with Tyler and Citlalli at the Broken Spoke and eavesdropped while Tyler discussed  shooting, while we waited for the crowd to gather for the evening’s free dance lessons.

Tyler looked around at the restaurant, which had lots of open tables but very little open wall space and commented, “How do I start dissecting this place?”

“What are the four elements of a photo essay?” he continued, then catching himself by the puzzled look on Citlalli’s face, “Didn’t I tell you the four elements of a photo essay?”

Citlalli shook her head no.

“Oops!” Tyler said, laughing, before listing them:  “Scene setter, overall, close up and detail, with the detail incorporating a human element.”

Tyler looked around the restaurant, which at that point had only two other tables of guests.  “Who are my people?” he asked, “Once you’ve chosen a subject, then you watch for that person to come into good light.

As the hour drew closer to eight p.m., more people started showing up, and by the eight o’clock class, the dance floor held twenty or so people.  Kari White, the daughter of the owners of the Broken Spoke came out to start the free two step instruction as Tyler worked closely with Citlalli shooting among the participants.

Kari White discussed the two step and explained, “We’ll do it together, then the girls go next, then we’re dancing.  1,2,3-together, glide together.  It’s a very simple dance, so this is the hardest part you’ll do tonight.”

Tyler and Citlalli drifted among the dancers, Tyler just behind Citlalli, for all the world, doing their own two-step.  A silver-haired gentleman stopped beside me and asked, “Are you taking notes on how to dance?”

“Kind of,” I laughed, before explaining about the Foundation Workshop.

“In this town,” the silver-haired  bystander said, “You’ll see the two step taught three different ways.  It all comes out looking pretty much the same.”

I smiled, thinking of the different mentoring strategies and teaching styles of the teams applied to each different student, and how even though the approaches were different, the students all arrived at a better understanding of how to frame and tell a story in images.  And then the song, “Why Don’t We Just Dance” came on, and the silver-haired bystander excused himself to take the dance floor with his wife,  twirling and gliding with mastery that comes from two-stepping for twenty years.

“All you’re going to do,” said Kari White to her students, “is get better and better and better.  You’ll figure it out.   When the music starts, it’s easier to figure out which one fits you best, so show me what you got.”

Photography by Ryan Jones : see more here

Thursday

Every year the foundation workshop peaks on Wednesday night, as the students come back in from the field for the last time.  Come Thursday morning, Foundation feels fundamentally different.   Foundation leaders and mentors shift their focus from teaching students to crafting the slideshows.   If the first day at foundation is defined by giddy restlessness of excitement to start shooting their story assignment, then the day after shooting could be defined by a combination of exhaustion and elation.

Foundation students, if they’re anything like I was, still resonate with the aftereffects of the “trip,” where at some point in their struggle, which builds to a crisis point in the pressure cooker of foundation, to “find” or “make” pictures, many students transition to seeing pictures all around them that they hadn’t seen before.  Many students describe this new state as “seeing differently.”   I’m here to say they’re talking about more than composition and exposure. When you gather a group of talented people who all strive for one simple thing, in Foundation’s case, to help each other see better, people are raised out of their regular state of consciousness and are given the opportunity to experience a breakthrough.   This breakthrough can be seen as matter of factly as a chiropractic adjustment, of becoming unstuck from a fixed way of seeing.  For others, it can be seen more metaphysically.   What’s so special about Foundation is that it provides the pressure and support for students to experience what they need to experience, since the process and the lessons are unscripted.

The Thursday night celebration includes dinner out followed by participant slideshows and commentary from the participants and team leaders.  Thursday night is bittersweet, because it is also farewell.  I sat and listened this year twice removed, one, not worrying about what to say before my slideshow and secondly, wrapped in the clutches of the flu which left me glazed eyed with fever and nearly voiceless.   I listened to Brooks banter at our table with Leigh Ann, Bill and Anne Holland, Andrew and Katrina Meija and Mike Mundell while Brooks and Leighanne’s son, Everett slept peacefully in his carseat next to us.  I watched the slideshows that condensed three days of epic struggle and a few thousand images down to a handful of images, each a thing of beauty.  I watched Jenny Jimenez free form limbo in front of Brooks then stand nose to nose with him and put her foot, very gently, on his shoulder.  I listened to the laughter all around me and the clink of glasses as participants and team leaders told their stories.  I felt the warmth rise off everyone as we huddled together to watch images projected onto the screen.

Then, just like that, it was over, and everyone donned coats and started trying to call cabs.  When the cabs didn’t come, we had to abandon the warmth of the banquet hall and step out into the light freezing rain that iced the streets and sidewalks.  Austin was eerily empty with the ice and the late hour.  Watching small groups of foundation revelers slip, laugh and disappear down the sidewalk, heading for an open bar, felt like a scene out of a Fellini movie, where the entire cast congo line off the screen, taking the warmth and light and laughter with them.

FW9 Take Out: Memorable Quotes Taken Out of Context

The Foundation Workshop is among other things, a quote factory.   I didn’t realize this fully until I attended with a notebook rather than a camera.   It wasn’t possible to fit all of the quotes in, so I’m adding some favorites below, as outtakes.

• Photojournalism is 99% mental – Tyler Wirken
• If you don’t believe in Santa Claus, you’re not going to get him to bring you any presents  — Brooks Whittington
• Always have a smile on your face – Brooks Whittington
• Make a picture.  Make it better – Tyler/Brooks
• Fear is what holds everyone back.  Fear of something – Tyler/Brooks
• If I were going to ask you to fill in the blank, photography is a ________ thing, you’d say “visual” right?  Photography is about listening, right through here (pointing to his heart).  Photography is NOT a treasure hunt.   – Matt Mendelsohn
• Photographer has to find a subject reflective of their personality.  Either look out the window or look in the mirror.  – Brett Butterstein quoting David Alan Harvey.
• Find your angle, your interpretation, take risks, shoot less obviously, less literally.  – paraphrased suggestions from Brett Butterstein’s presentation
• Work good scenes to death, watch for body language, never be satisfied, perfect your compositions, wait for the action.  You have to keep trying things.  – Brett Butterstein
• You can’t spell “photojournalism” without an “I.” – Matt Mendelsohn
• Don’t try to be here and be someone you’re not.  – Greg Gibson
• Photography today has become endless cycles of hero worship.  – Matt Mendelsohn
• Listen to all of it (what you hear at Foundation), then throw out what doesn’t work for you. – Greg Gibson
• There’s no such thing as bad experience.  There’s just experience. – Matt Mendelsohn
• I wanna see the good, the bad, and the ugly. – Greg Gibson discussing not deleting images
• How does _____ (student) need to be challenged? – Huy Nguyen, in meeting assigning stories.
• What you’ve got is the raw ingredients, now you’ve got to make something of it. – Matt Mendelsohn
• “So this is the new stuff?”  Matt to student.  “Unfortunately,” student reply.
• Don’t ever take one photograph.  – Brooks Whittington
• No winners or losers here.  The only way you lose is if you walk out of here without learning something.  – Greg Gibson
• This is not about the assignment.  All that matters is that you learn and grow as a photographer. – Greg Gibson
• Shooting weddings you should be sweaty even if you’re not fat. – Brooks Whittington
• I am a compositional freak.  – Brooks Whittington
• The guy who came here and moved things, I almost choked him, and I’m a pacifist. – Brooks Whittington
• Notice your projections and change. — Amy Deputy
• Women tend to apologize for their power. – Amy Deputy
• Formulate some ideas how you want to shoot something, and then let it develop.  – Huy Nguyen
• You shouldn’t need a caption for your photo.  – Huy Nguyen
• Think of ways to show us things we need to know.  — Huy Nguyen
• What are the pretty parts?  What are the ugly parts?  How do I get rid of the ugly parts? – Ben Chrisman
• Sizing up a room, always evaluate the light.  — Huy Nguyen
• I feel like everyone is shooting scared.  They just need to lose that.  – Ben Chrisman
• I feel like your compositions are a little wild.  Think of everything in the frame. – Ben Chrisman
• Think of having a dominant element and other things not competing.  – Ben Chrisman
• Find balance.  Get to a place where you can function and feel it. – Huy Nguyen
• Show us the coffee shop the way you feel it/see it.  – Ben Chrisman
• Shoot the transition. – Huy Nguyen
• There are moments there that we don’t know are happening. — Huy Nguyen
• From the side, doing stuff.  That is really high on my bad angle list. – Huy Nguyen
• That’s a one framer.  Realize mistake.  Move.   Show me a boring frame and then move. – Huy Nguyen
• I see a lot of missed opportunities. – Jennifer Domenick
• Light.  Composition.  Moment.  And FOCUS.  We’re adding a fourth requirement.  – Huy Nguyen
• “Did you get a good night’s sleep last night?”  David Murray asked.  “All three hours.”  Dexter Lo replied .
• You are not giving up on this.  You’re like a pitbull on this picture. – David Murray
• What do I want people to see?  What do I like?  — David Murray
• The rest of the frame is neither simpler nor important.  – Becca Spears
• Too literal.  – Erwin Darmali
• Don’t spray and pray.  – Tyler Wirken
• Don’t be too quick to be content.  – Tyler Wirken
• Look past what is staring you in the face. – Tyler Wirken
• Hands and eyes are the most expressive elements. – Brett Butterstein
• Every photo needs to have a purpose.  Don’t shoot blindly. – Ben Chrisman
• Get past yourself.  Forget yourself.  Get completely absorbed in them.”  Ben Chrisman
• Fall in love.  What is it like when you describe a person you fell in love with.  Transfer that to the pictures.  – Amy Deputy
• It’s a CAN portrait!  You CAN pose that can!  — Huy Nguyen discussing a Lone Star beer can.
• Maybe the photoshop fairy will  come visit us tonight. – Huy Nguyen
• I feel like it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the place. – Tyler Wirken discussing an overall shot.
• Make it clear.  Sparkly clear. – Tyler Wirken
• The point is that you didn’t get it, which should piss you off even more.  – Sergio
• You’re a fishing photographer.  Practice good fishing, not bad fishing. – Tyler Wirken
• That’s your squirrel.  SQUIRREL!!! – Tyler Wirken
• You’re moving too much. – Tyler Wirken
• You’ll be doing too many things well and not enough things great. – Tyler Wirken
• Showing what’s going on – make it great, then make YOUR picture. – Tyler Wirken
• You’ve got to commit to the making.  – Tyler Wirken
• This is a pedestrian point and shoot angle. – Tyler Wirken
• I’m really unhappy right now.  Everything you wanted to have happen in this picture, happened in this picture.”  — Tyler Wirken
• There is nothing wrong with your work.  You’re in between levels in your work.  You’re trying to go to this other level, but you’re not good enough yet and you miss it.  It’s painful to be in that in between stage. – Tyler Wirken
• That’s why you’re here, to see different.  You didn’t come here to be told how you see is perfect.  – Sergio
• This picture works, because it shows the saloon.  This picture doesn’t work, because it shows Billy Bob the beer guy. – Tyler Wirken
• The reason is the R word, “Relevance.”  — Tyler Wirken
• Whenever I have a thought for a pic where there’s a “maybe” involved, then I’m going to prove to myself if it is or isn’t.  – Tyler Wirken
• Sometimes you’ve just got to let cool rule. – Tyler, referencing a “no relevance” pic.
• Wanting to get the people in the picture by shooting 1000 pictures of no people in the picture isn’t going to work.  You need people in the pictures to get people in the picture.  – Tyler
• Slow your shooting down and shoot what matters.  Tighten it up. – Tyler
• You’re going to say, “Yeehaw and Bullshit” a whole bunch of times. – Kari White at the Broken Spoke.
• Stop playing with random animals.  Stop playing on slides.  Wash your hands.  Don’t get sick. – Coach at the Cheer Factory

- end

the video: FW9

photos: FW9

students’ words: FW9

Thank you!!!!!! to Britt Bailey for her account at the Foundation Workshop 9  (held in February 2011 in Austin, TX)

it’s a long article so we’ll break it up over a few days….here’s Part I

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FW9 (Part I)
by Britt Bailey

For the past nine years wedding photographers have gathered at the Foundation Workshop, the brainchild of Huy (sounds like “HwE”) Nguyen.  Based on the longstanding Missouri Photo Workshop and the Mountain Workshop, the Foundation Workshop sharpens wedding photojournalist’s skills through shooting a story assignment.   At FW9, thirty photographers who ranged in skill from award-winning photojournalists and wedding photographers  to photographers just starting out,  set their accomplishments aside and became Foundation students for a week.  Each student joined one of five teams, led by some of the best wedding photographers and former photojournalists in the country.  Each team leader was supported by two mentors and one assistant.  With the additional support staff of volunteers, administrators, photographers, and videographers, the student to faculty ratio is nearly one to one.

What follows is a bit of what happens in those five days.

Monday

I want to see well-photographed people, in beautiful light, with moments – Huy.

After an introduction day on Sunday and presentations on photojournalism by Brooks Whittington and Tyler Wirken, followed by Brett Butterstein, FW students were given their assignments on a sheet of paper, along with contact phone numbers, a street address, and a map.  Nowhere on that sheet, however, did  it say what the story would be within the assignment.  That, in the vast majority of cases, the student had to find on their own.  Say the assignment is a bakery or a bar or a coffee shop.  The student showed up bright and early Monday morning, and then started trying to figure out how to tell the story of this place, what the heartbeat was, in some cases, who to ask to follow home.  Monday was the “Are you my story?” day.

The foundation workshop subjects students to controlled chaos, otherwise stated as things not going as planned.  On a bright day in Austin, Texas this can look any of a number of ways.  It can be a disgruntled manager setting limits on access.  It can be a seemingly agreeable manager who is happy to help, with one little caveat that the student is not allowed to photograph any of the store’s customers.  It can be missed opportunities in the form of “you should have been here Saturday.”  It can be, in a word, frustrating.

More than one student marched back through the Foundation Workshop hotel lobby exasperated to the point of tears Monday afternoon.  The photographers who sign up for foundation tend to be an overachieving lot who want, more than anything, to “do well,” no matter how many times their team leaders tell them that it’s more about the process than the pictures and a key  part of that process is frustration and overcoming obstacles.

After spending the day shooting, students gathered back  in the individual team’s editing suites around six pm to go through each and every photo taken by the students, which generally took until  two or three am.  In Huy’s suite, the first editing night, going through a student’s images, he said, “Shoot pictures with a purpose.  Every shot you take, there should be a reason….. You can shoot to look busy, shoot to tell a story, shoot to get them comfortable, shoot to set exposure. “

“These pictures show you being shy,” said Huy to a student toward the end of the night. “Tomorrow you won’t be shy.”

Photographs by Kate Mefford : see more here

Tuesday

All the things we learned last night.  I forgot it very easily — Gerhard

Day one was about students trying to find the story in their assignment.  Day two, with the weather plummeting from the mid-seventies to the mid-thirties, with an expected low of seventeen degrees, the story became, in some cases, the story of leaders scrambling to find new assignments for their students.  The skate park and mini golf, for example, fell apart with the cold.  Other assignments yielded all the story they were going to yield in one day, so leaders decided to switch those students to new assignments to give them fresh challenges.

The heart of the foundation workshop is mentoring, both in the team rooms at night, reviewing the days shooting, and in the field, in more hands on help, when mentors go out to students’ assignments.   I followed Matt Mendelsohn out to the Austin Cheer Factory to observe him mentoring in the field.  When we arrived there were two little girls, one five years old, and one eight, practiced back hand springs on the mats alongside the main floor with two coaches.  These two little girls, Genesis and  Kendra, with outsized personalities , leopard print shorts and boundless determination, became the natural subjects.

“The picture is happening right in front of you,” said Matt to the student he was mentoring, watching  Genesis  and Kendra cavort with the rest of the little girls in the cheer squad.  “Find your girl.  Wait for her.”

The Austin Cheer Factory coaches that evening were all males, and they were drilling in the final week before a big competition that weekend.  I was struck by how hard the little girls worked, which showed the background to why the walls were lined with banners and trophies from cheering competitions.   Another wall was inscribed with letters nearly as tall as the littlest girls, “SET THE STANDARD.  DEMAND RESPECT.  WIN BIG!!!!”

“I can’t.  I won’t.  I don’t,” barked one of the instructors at one point.  “I don’t want to hear that anymore.”   At another point, he said, “I’m not here to raise little girls.”

“Yes sir!” shouted fifteen little girls, Genesis and Kendra among them.

The little girls did their competition routine over and over while pop music blared and their coaches counted, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!”

Matt meanwhile, worked the angles with his student, sitting on the corner of the mat with his shoes off, patiently pointing out the scene, sometimes taking a picture as an example, before handing the camera back over and having the student shoot, then looking to see what she shot.

“Better be perfect, or I’m cutting off ponytails!” said one of the instructors.  A couple of small hands reached reflexively for messy ponytails.  “Just kidding,” said the instructor.

I had to laugh that the cheer factory coaches working with little girls made our foundation photographer team leaders and mentors look like pussycats.   In all the critiques I heard, never once did I hear, “Why the look of hot mess?”   Or “Next person who coughs, do a pushup, “ which he wasn’t kidding about, since within moments,  a little girl coughed and the whole troop had to do pushups.

Foundation students get one mentor visit a day.  Since this was a second day visit, the mentoring  was more intense and direct than first day.  Abstract notions of how to “teach” photojournalism and bulleted lists of do’s and don’ts are discarded in the field by the simple and immediate question of “What does this student need to get this story into the camera?”

I understood that urgency, because I was surprised this year by how invested I felt in the student’s stories even though I was an observer not a participant.  I wanted breakthroughs for them every bit as much, if not more, than I’d ever wanted that for myself.  I realized I was not alone in this feeling.  And mentors made good use of their in the field time to do everything in their power to help facilitate breakthroughs.

Tyler said it very well, when he said later on, “We only have three days for this process, so I’m going to bombard you with information.  I’m going to tell you everything I know.”

Back at the hotel Tuesday evening, the foundation teams gathered to go over the second day’s images to see what progress they’d made from their shooting and stories the first day.

The team members  sat around the hotel room basking in the glow from the projector screen.  Some sprawled on the floor with blankets and pillows, some gathered on the couch, some on chairs.  A strange intimacy forms sitting in a darkened room staring at image after image shot by a student, seeing the world unedited through their camera, seeing their struggles, which are universal, and their accomplishments:  frames that make the cut, that further the story, have light, composition, moment and focus.  I was reminded of hunters sitting around a campfire telling the stories of the day’s hunt.

“Shoot with a purpose,” said Jennifer Domenick, repeating the mantra for Huy’s team.

“We’re going into the wrong series for that,” said a student with dismay, and I had to laugh, remembering that feeling so well.

“You’re not just shooting what he’s doing, you’re shooting what it feels like,” said Ben Chrisman in a review.   Ben told the story of when he’d spent three weeks shooting in a refugee camp in Sri Lanka and showed them to Antonin Kratochvil.

“You’re missing it,” Anton said. “You’re taking all the photos you’d expect of a refugee camp and none of the photos of what it feels like to be in a refugee camp.”

(coming tomorrow – Part II: Wednesday, Thursday, and the rest of the story…)

the video: FW9

photos: FW9

students’ words: FW9