I’ve learned a lot from shooting. I’ve learned a lot from seeing other peoples work. I’ve learned a lot from reading. But I’ve never felt like the heavens opened up and changed my work at workshops designed to sell you digital effects tools for way too much money. This one wasn’t any different. I checked out a workshop by a guy named Doug Gordon in Dallas who was a big name in the New York wedding photography world, of whom I’d never heard of but my wife, the keeper of all information that I can not recall, had and she showed me who he was. For six hours he was obnoxious, profane, spoke with a very New York accent and basked in the light of his own glory…….and did I say obnoxious? In between sizzling his fingers on his own butt and proclaiming multiple times that, “it had been a while since he’d had a white boy,” Doug Gordon imparted little tidbits of knowledge about his business and how to do things better. He seemed a strange combination of the character Fat Bastard from the Austen Powers film and me. The workshop was about the sexy side of wedding photography. As he spoke I kept expecting him to exclaim, “I’M DEAD SEXY!” But alas those words never quite escaped his mouth. He talked, shot some pictures and then talked some more, then tried to sell us stuff. Typical workshop.
Overall I had a good time and it motivated me to continue pushing the limits with what I do and make images that are unforgettable. Below are a few images I shot of his models then tweaked with my own tweaks to make the images similar to his final output at the end of the day. In the end I didn’t buy his magic doodads and instead invented my own. I sell mine a little cheaper. Check out the Cheap Tricks section of our website to see what our Tweakers do. I’M DEAD SEXY!
2 comments
Comment by Mary
Mary September 27, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Did old Doug mention he has a franchised photography business in Austin called P@tken? They have a booth at the Bridal Extrav.
I attended Dougs workshop in Austin last December and he announced his plans to take over the market here. He also talked about how he had called all of the photographers in Austin to get a price lists and to find out there sales pitches. Oh… I have move complaints, but I’ll save them for next time we speak face to face.
If you want to see the flow posing video I have a copy. It isn’t ANY GOOD!!! He is just so offensive and there isn’t time to go through that many poses with real brides/grooms on the fly.
Comment by Travis Gagnon
Travis Gagnon October 3, 2007 at 2:26 pm
He did mention his Patken deally. I actually emailed him a month ago asking what the heck patken was because I thought it was one of the stupidest names for a business since Acme.
I didn’t go into most of the annoying tings about him in the post because I tend to keep it light, fluffy and happy. I can very easily spend way too much time dwelling on he negative.
I think it is possible to shoot that many poses in a short period of time, but you have to have a punchlist of poses that you’ve used 100 times before to make it feasible. That’s not really my thing. I kind of like to be creative on the spot and make something new when I can.
Thanks for the offer on the flow posing, but I think I’ll pass. I had a Kubota RAW workflow CD for months that I borrowed from my friend Coral, and I think I got about half way through it before she needed it back. It wasn’t boring or unuseful information, but I just kept getting distracted.
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