Our workshop schedule for the first part of 2015 is set, including the workshops and classes we do in partnership with Samy’s Camera at our studio. This year we will concentrate on OCF (off camera flash), Beginning and Advanced Studio Portrait Lighting, the Wedding Workshop and a Post Production Workshop. We also plan to have at least one environmental location portrait / fashion shoot with a great model. Below are brief descriptions of each class or workshop; what we’ll cover, the best experience level you should have to take full advantage of the information presented, the gear you should bring, etc.
We will have models to photograph at our workshops; these could be couples, for the wedding workshop, or individuals for the OCF and Studio Portrait Lighting workshops. You will photograph the models, and come away with nice images, but these workshops are not meant to be “Portfolio Building Events”, they are meant to teach you how to recreate each situation and give you a better understanding of lighting, posing and the photographic process.
If you are considering attending one of our workshops but have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email or call us. We’re always happy to chat with you to make sure you attend and benefit from the right workshops for you.
THESE ARE THE 2015 CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS ALREADY SCHEDULED… MORE TO COME!
Wednesday, February 4th, 7 to 10 pm: OFF CAMERA SPEEDLITE FLASH WORKSHOP. Investment: $49.95. Sign up through Samy’s Camera Photo School
Sunday, February 8th, 9:30 am to 4:30 pm: WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP. Investment: $150.00. Sign up through Samy’s Camera Photo School
Sunday, March 8th, 1 to 4 pm: ADVANCED STUDIO LIGHTING. Investment: $75.00. Sign up through Samy’s Camera Photo School
Saturday, March 21st, 10:30 to 1:30: OFF CAMERA SPEEDLITE FLASH WORKSHOP. Investment: $49.95. Sign up through Samy’s Camera Photo School
Saturday, March 28th, 10 am to 5 pm: WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP. Investment: $150.00. Sign up through Samy’s Camera Photo School
Thursday, April 16th, 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm: POST PRODUCTION WORKSHOP Investment: $49.00. Sign up here.
Saturday, April 18th, 1 to 4 pm: ADVANCED STUDIO LIGHTING. Investment: $75.00. Sign up through Samy’s Camera Photo School
Sunday, April 26th, 1 to 4 pm: OFF CAMERA SPEEDLITE FLASH WORKSHOP. Investment: $49.95. Sign up through Samy’s Camera Photo School
Sunday, May 3rd, 10 am to 1 pm: DISPLAY CALIBRATION & COLOR MANAGEMENT Investment: $79.00. Sign up here.
* * * * * * LIGHTROOM TRAINING SERIES * * * * * *
We’re very excited to have Barry Evans teaching an entire Lightroom series at our studio. We’ll start out this series with a beginner’s guide to Lightroom in our “Getting Up and Running With Lightroom” workshop. Then we’ll dive deeper into the different modules that Lightroom has to offer, with three separate seminars that will cover the Library, Develop, and Print modules. Full class descriptions are towards the bottom of this post.
About the instructor
Barry discovered photography when he was only twelve and was drawn to it immediately. As he matured as a photographer Barry was inspired by the work of Paul Caponigro and Ansel Adams, he was hooked for life!
Barry paid for his college education by taking photographic assignments and working full time in a camera store. The next thirty years have been a complete immersion in the photographic industry; from running retail operations and working as a manufacturer’s representative for Canon and Ilford to owning his own Studio and Lab. At the same time Barry has developed a very successful second career as a software consultant and educator, specializing in Adobe’s Lightroom.
Currently, Barry is the Pro Department Manager at Samy’s Camera in Santa Ana, and is passing on his thirty five years of technical experience though lectures, consulting and technical editing.
Intro to Lightroom
Wednesday, April 1st, 6:30 to 8:30 PM: GETTING UP AND RUNNING WITH LIGHTROOM. Investment: $29.00 Sign up here
In-depth Lightroom Module Workshops
Wednesday, April 22nd, 6:30 to 9:30 PM: THE LIBRARY, IMAGE MANAGEMENT IN LIGHTROOM. Investment: $69.00
Wednesday, April 29th, 6:30 to 9:30 PM: THE DEVELOP MODULE, CREATING A PERFECT IMAGE. Investment: $69.00
Wednesday, May 6th, 6:30 to 9:30 PM: THE PRINT MODULE, CREATING THE PERFECT PRINT. Investment: $69.00
We are offering a discounted price to those who invest in more than one Lightroom Module training workshop. If you purchase two out of the three workshops the price for both is $118 ($59 each). For all three Lightroom Module classes, the total investment is $147 ($49 each), and will also include an unique set of Lightroom presets to help you make your images stand out. To sign up for one or more Lightroom Module workshops click here.
OFF CAMERA SPEEDLITE FLASH WORKSHOP
This 3-hour workshop is designed to get you up and running with your portable speedlite or on-camera flash. You will learn how to get the most from it – Hint, it usually means taking it off your cameras hot shoe and using remote triggering systems.
Concepts such as TTL metering, wireless flash, flash exposure compensation, and rear curtain sync will be covered. Bounce lighting strategies and using flash accessories such as small soft boxes, shoot through umbrellas, bounce cards, snoots, grids and colored gels will also be discussed. This class will help you take better flash photos. You will greatly improve your lighting skills and your images won’t have that “flashed” look.
This class is especially useful for wedding, event and portrait photographers who want to use OCF to enhance existing environmental outdoor and indoor lighting with minimum gear.
Experience Level: Beginner to Intermediate: Attendee should be familiar with the basic functions and menus of their camera and on-camera flash. Please review your camera and flash owner’s manual as much as you can before the class.
Requirements: Please bring you DSLR camera with 50mm lens or longer (70-200mm range lenses or zoom ideal), external flash, pocket wizard if you have one, and note taking materials. Make sure your battery is charged and you have room for photos on your memory card.
Investment: $49.95. Sign up through Samy’s Camera Photo School
WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP Through Samy’s Camera
This jam-packed 7 hour workshop (with a lunch break) will not only be about the all-important photography side of weddings, including essential gear and techniques to get the job done. It will also cover the business of wedding photography. Our day will start in the classroom for an info-pack session covering the business end. Then, after lunch students will learn portrait posing and lighting techniques. We will provide a couple as the models, in “engagement session” wardrobe. After the shoot, we will cover post-processing, retouching and album design. The “shooting” section of this workshop usually takes place outdoors.
Topics covered: Marketing and networking to reach the right clients, price lists, websites and blogs, sales, contracts, engagement sessions, photo gear, posing, lighting (OCF), post production workflow (RAW & Lightroom), retouching, album design, photoshop retouching and album sales.
This workshop is perfect for photographers new to wedding photography, and those who have some experience and want to fine-tune their business, technical and artistic skills. It is a great, one day, intensive learning experience that will boost your skill levels in many key areas of our profession.
Experience Level: Intermediate. Attendees should have a good understanding of F-Stops, Shutter Speed, ISO, and be able to operate their camera in manual mode. Basic understanding of flash photography is also important. Please review your camera and flash owner’s manual as much as you can before the class.
Requirements: Please bring your camera, lenses, flash and note taking materials. Make sure your battery is charged and you have room for photos on your memory card.
ADVANCED STUDIO LIGHTING Through Samy’s Camera
In this 3 hour, hands-on portrait lighting workshop, held in a working studio, we will show students how to use professional studio strobes in a fashion / portrait environment. We will work with one, two and three light setups with multiple light modifiers including soft boxes, umbrellas and reflectors. Background selection and posing techniques will also be discussed. This is a shooting workshop where students will have a chance to photograph a model with their own cameras. Triggering devices (PocketWizards) will be provided if you don’t already have one.
Topics covered: Studio strobe lighting gear and techniques, soft boxes, umbrellas and reflectors, the right modifier to achieve the right look, metering and proper exposure, lens, f-stop and depth of field choices, positive and negative fill light, directing and posing a model, setting up a portrait studio.
In a controlled studio environment, your creativity is the only limit to what you can achieve. This workshop will take the mystery out of working with professional studio lighting, modifiers and metering,

In this 3 hour, hands-on fashion / portrait lighting workshop, held in our working studio, we will show students how to use professional studio strobes in a fashion / portrait environment. We will work with one and two light setups with soft boxes, umbrellas and reflectors. Background selection and posing techniques will also be discussed. The difference between this workshop and the ADVANCED STUDIO LIGHTING workshop is that here we go into much more depth with each lighting set up, with more time to explain and understand each of the principles involved. This is a shooting workshop where students will have a chance to photograph a model with their own cameras. Triggering devices (PocketWizards) will be provided if you don’t already have one.
Topics covered: Studio strobe lighting gear; packs and heads, Dynalite equipment, and self contained units, AC (corded) and DC (battery powered) Profoto D1’s and B1’s. Lighting techniques using soft boxes, beauty dishes, umbrellas and reflectors, the right modifier to achieve the right look, metering and proper exposure, lens, f. stop and depth of field choices, positive and negative fill light, directing and posing a model, setting up a portrait studio.
In this workshop will take the mystery out of working with professional studio lighting, modifiers and metering. We will slowly build each lighting set up explaining how everything comes together to bring our vision to reality. That’s the beauty of studio work, it’s a control environment where we are free to create!
Investment: $59.00. Sign up here:
If you also sign up for our ADVANCED STUDIO FASHION / PORTRAIT LIGHTING AND POSING Presented by Barnet Workshops, the total investment for both is only: $99.00

In this 4 hour, hands-on fashion / portrait lighting workshop, held in our working studio, we will show students how to use professional studio strobes in a fashion / portrait environment. We will start with a two light setup and we’ll work with up to 6 lights. We’ll use soft boxes with egg crates, grids, umbrellas, beauty dishes, ring lights and reflectors. Background selection and lighting will be explained, along with posing techniques and model direction. This is a shooting workshop where students will have a chance to photograph a model with their own cameras. Triggering devices (PocketWizards) will be provided if you don’t already have one.
Topics covered: Studio strobe lighting gear; packs and heads, Dynalite equipment, and self contained units, AC (corded) and DC (battery powered) Profoto D1’s and B1’s. Lighting techniques using soft boxes, beauty dishes, umbrellas and reflectors, the right modifier to achieve the right look, metering and proper exposure, lens, f-stop and depth of field choices, positive and negative fill light, directing and posing a model, setting up a portrait studio.
In this workshop will take the mystery out of working with professional studio lighting, modifiers and metering. We will slowly build each lighting set up explaining how everything comes together to bring our vision to reality. That’s the beauty of studio work, it’s a control environment where we are free to create!
Investment: $59.00. Sign up here:
If you also sign up for our BEGINNING STUDIO FASHION / PORTRAIT LIGHTING AND POSING the total investment for both is only: $99.00

Requirements: Please bring your camera, portrait lens, 50mm or longer telephoto, (70-200mm range lenses or zoom ideal) and note taking materials. Be sure that your camera battery is charged and you have room for photos on your memory card. PocketWizard triggering device, if you have one.




Requirements: Note taking materials. Cameras are not necessary. You may bring your laptop, but only to take notes if that’s how you like to take notes. Because Mirta will cover a wide variety of skills, “follow along” with your computer is not possible.

Whether you’re a landscape or portrait photographer working with 100 images after a shoot or an event shooter with 3000 images from a wedding, this class is the essential start up guide, designed to save you many hours of frustrating and confusing experimentation.

The Library, Image Management in Lightroom
Do you have thousands of photographs but cannot find the one you are looking for? This deep dive into Lightroom’s Library will show you how to find any image in less than fifteen seconds, no matter how big your catalogue has become.
Adobe created Lightroom to give us control over digital images, this class will show you the path to mastering this powerful tool. Starting with the creation of new libraries, you will be shown the strategies for optimizing you photographic library.
The Develop Module, Creating a Perfect Image
Bewildered by all of the enhancement tools available in Lightroom? This is the class to choosing and mastering those tools. Learn to optimized your photographs as never before. Cropping, color balance, exposure correction, contrast, burning, dodging, black and white conversion and more. Then, learn to use Lightroom’s “Presets” to shape your styles and techniques and to make your style instantly repeatable. Lightroom is especially useful when you need to correct and enhance multiple images, from a handful to a complete wedding in the shortest amount of time, without using Photoshop.
The Print Module, Creating the Perfect Print
Creating a Master Print is not a random event, whether you print yourself or use a photo lab, it is time to take control of how your photographs appear in print. This is the only class you will ever need to master the concepts of color profiles, gamut and soft proofing to craft the perfect print. It continues by teaching you how to control the placement of your photograph on a page, setting precise borders and image size.
The “end game” of photography is to create a beautiful photograph; a print, that you’re proud to display or to deliver to your client. This class will teach you to print your image exactly the way you intended it to be.

by admin
Christopher Sutton - I attended your off camera flash workshop a few months ago and you spoke about an album tool that sort of automatically created the album for you. What product was that? Also, when is your next wedding photography workshop?
Thank you.