I’m cheating a little bit for this month’s film blog circle post as this month’s theme is “reflections”. So instead of posting pictures of reflections, I am reflecting on my time at the Film is Not Dead workshop that took place last February in Brighton. It’s a long time in the making, but today I’ve finally put some of my thoughts down on here. For those who don’t know I’ve been a long time stalker (ahem) follower of Jonathan Canlas‘s work and the FIND workshop. I bought his first book when it was first a pdf, and have longed to go on his workshop but I kept putting it off. Well I had to bite the bullet sometime, and this year is the last year he is taking this workshop outside the US so it’s kinda my last chance unless I wanted to travel to Hawaii (which really would be marvellous if I won the lottery!) I was nervous. Concerned. What if it doesn’t live up to my high expectation? I’ve been building this up for 3 years, I’ve followed his advice in the books as much as I can, practised on my own as much as I can, should I just have spent all that money on more film and developing costs? What if I make a complete tit of myself in front of all these accomplished photographers ? I was a little scared. But I did not need to be. It was all and more than I thought it would be. Jon was welcoming and an open book. And yes, he’s actually a human being (ask me sometime about what I caught Jon and Albert watching before the start of the course!) and he’s very down to earth. He teaches you Not to be like a proto Jonathan Canlas (as if anyone could ever be!) but to be yourself, to find your passion, to find your voice. A lot of things happened on that workshop. There were random TV crews on the promenade, my trusty mamiya failed after a few shots, there were a few travelling woes, but you know what, I got to meet new photography friends from all over the world and although we were not all from the same genre or focused on the same sort of photography, and were all at different points in our careers, we were all immersed in film talk, and more importantly, hopefully, FINDing ourselves.
These were taken on the first day when we got to meet the lovely Lizzie and Rhoddie (also wedding photographers themselves and newly wed last year). I think to me this is what wedding photography is all about, capturing the love between 2 people (and on a real wedding, the love from all the guests there too). We all each had 10 minutes to do our thing (with Jon or Albert his assistant on hand to give advice and pointers if needed). Film developed and scanned by UK Film Lab. Keep a look out on my children and family blog for the photos of families, and what we shot during our “personal” time coming in a couple of weeks.
Please hop on over to fellow film photographer and also past FIND attendee, Jen Golay and take a look around our film blog circle this month.
