The Ryan Brenizer Workshop

Everyone else at the workshop got their blog posts up before me, but here I go finally! Slow and steady wins, right? I love winning…

So, I was lucky enough to attend the Ryan Brenizer workshop last Saturday, and what an experience it was! I met so many great photographers, including (obviously) Ryan. I’d like to name/link a few here so you can(SHOULD) check out their work; this list is by no means all-inclusive, as I didn’t get to meet everyone and I KNOW I’m probably forgetting people: Maria Landaverde, Lydia Chen, Brett Maxwell, Brian Calabrese, Simone Scurzoni, Amberlee Christey, Elaine Gardner, and Dmitry Gudkov. The amazing weekend actually started on Thursday, with an informal meet-up of the Starting a Wedding Photography Business Flickr group. Two full days of Brenizer-tasticness followed, during which I got to hang with Ryan and a smaller group of photogs. We talked business, annoyed restaurant staff, angered security guards, light-painted each other, and generally froze our butts off running the streets of NYC. Once the pre-workshop mixer got started on Friday night (with the much larger workshop group), I already knew half the people there. We mixed, we mingled, we burned through bottles of wine like Dionysus, then went to bed early.

After two days of hanging with Ryan, I knew this wouldn’t be any normal workshop. And he confirmed that right out of the gate by starting the discussion with the “why” of photography rather than the “how”. His philosophy on the subject definitely changed the way I think about photography, and especially wedding photography. So, big thanks to Ryan for flipping da script, as the kids say.

Once we got into more technical things, we discussed bounce flash techniques, the “Brenizer Method”, and quick flash composites. In that portion of the workshop, Ryan focused on tools we could add to our bag of tricks to make us more versatile photographers, even in undesirable situations. He demonstrated by making some beautiful shots in the ugliest flourescent-lit hallway I have ever seen. This was a refreshing reinforcement of something that I have been preaching lately to anyone who will listen. To get a beautiful shot, you don’t NEED a “beautiful” location. It bugs me when I see City Park absolutely FILLED with photographers on weekends shooting engagements and family portraits. To me, that shows a lack of creativity on the photographers’ part. You don’t HAVE to go to City Park, it shouldn’t be your default. Look around you; use light, textures, shadows, perspective, color.

But enough of this talking, let’s see some pics, Zack! Yeesh…

Let’s start off with the man himself at work:

Followed by his devoted intern, who doubles as a Yuengling delivery service.

Ryan then took us outside to demonstrate flash composites and first aid for frostbite.

One of the models, Mae, who remained calm as ice as approximately 374,000 cameras turned in her direction when Ryan set us loose.

And the other model (and killer photog), Lydia (MM profile), who instantly scored a spot high on my personal “awesomest people in the world” list.