Today’s article is from our brand new contributor James Spencer, a professional photographer based in Bradley Stoke, Bristol. To find out more about James please follow the links at the end of the post.

I joined the Society for Wedding and Portrait Photographers (#SWPP) around a year ago having received a personal recommendation from another photographer to what a great organisation they were.  I am so glad I did join as I have enjoyed my first year with them and without this I would never have found out about the Mentor Me On Steroids (MMOS) programme.

I first came across a post on the SWPP forum describing the mentoring programme with all concerned raving about how effective it was and how good Damian was at relaying information to help photographers take their photography to the next level. I have to say though at first I was slightly worried about what I was letting myself in for, I had visions of attending and the venue being raided by the drugs squad and spending a night in Warrington police station

But in all seriousness I felt through my private portrait and wedding photography work I had reached a certain level or peak and I had stopped improving and I was starting to feel just a little bit too comfy where I was constantly targeting the safe and sellable route for my photography. In effect I had stopped challenging myself, and being the type of person who needed to constantly improve myself I needed to put that right.

Damian called me to invite me to attend the first session and as soon as I spoke to him, his friendly persona and highly passionate approach to his photography shone through and I was instantly excited about being a part of the programme and being mentored by the Big Dog that is Damian McGillicuddy..

In preparation for the first day with Damian we had to provide him with 10 prints of our average work, it took me an age to select my images and I didn’t want to select all my best work as I felt I needed to show him that I still needed  his help in improving with my photography journey.

I started the programme in early February 2011 and I was so excited about the first day that I could not sleep the night before, in some ways I was excited and in others scared stiff of what I had let myself in for. I was up really early on the morning of the first day and I managed to drive upto Warrington where Damian is based in the double-quick time of just over 2 hours, which from Bristol was good going [Note to local police on the M5 and M6, if you saw a Blue sports car driving quite quickly it wasn’t me…? ]

I managed to arrive at Damien’s studio which is based in an industrial estate about 2 hours before I needed to, I used the time sat in my car to try to work out what I wanted to achieve from the programme, what I came up with was as follows:

I wanted to:

• Ensure I had a solid basis upon which I had to build on, I was sure that Damien’s assessment of my images would help me here.
• Learn from the master what I was doing well and where I was going wrong at present and put that right.
• By the end of the programme be more confident with studio lighting and be able to build on my current skills and be able to consistently take stunning images – no pressure Damien!
• Gain feedback from my customers where they used terms like “wow, stunning, where do I sign….!”
• Increase my confidence with my photography and customers.
• Generally have a greater scope of skills and techniques to handle all situations and environments that were thrown at me.
• Understand the art of light
• Oh and have a good time at the same time…

 

So not a very big list then, as I said above no pressure Damien.

Upon starting the course I met the others who would be working with me and being mentored by Damian, and they could not have been a friendlier group. Lesley (Damian’s wife), made me a nice cuppa and although I was still nervous about the day I did start to relax a little.

When the big moment came to meet Damian I have to say I was in my element, meeting someone who I had admired from afar for so long it was a wonderful experience. He and Lesley were very welcoming and I instantly felt at ease.

We started off with a round table chat going through each of our portfolios we had selected for Damian to assess. I have to say when I glimpsed at the other group members images I felt they were stunning and I knew I had made the right decision in attending and being part of the experience.

Of all the people attending I was probably one of the less experienced in terms of number of years’ experience and being in the professional industry, but that didn’t matter as I was confident that over time I will improve at a rapid rate although it might be a higher and steeper learning curve for me.

The time came for Damian to asses’ my images and I could see instantly that he thought my images were very “safe” and to be fair that was the feedback he gave me. I instantly knew that I had to make the leap of faith to get out of the “safe” zone and enter a new more challenging and rewarding environment.

We carried on talking for a while and eventually we moved onto the first practical session which involved all of us moving upstairs in his unit to the studio area.

The studio area was a nice open space with enough space to house all of Damian’s “toys”.

Damian started talking us through the studio and what kit he had in it and every 5 mins he would disappear into the cupboard which I can only imagine must be Doctor Who’s Tardis by the amount of toys he constantly kept bringing out. His studio is also surrounded by images on the walls of his recent work, which I can only say were stunning, and very inspiring indeed.

We then got the opportunity to meet our professional model for the day in the lovely Charlie, judging by the flack and micky taking she took from Damian it was obvious they were good friends and had worked together a lot in the past.

Damian started by demonstrating a basic butterfly lighting setup (This lighting can be recognised by the strong light falling on the forehead, the bridge of the nose and the upper cheeks, and by the distinct shadow below the nose which often looks rather like a butterfly and thus provides the name for this lighting plan), and demonstrated to us how to use a light meter properly to balance the exposure of the foreground and background lighting.

I must admit I own such a tool but had not used it consistently in the past, instead relying on experience and good judgement and trial and error to get my exposure right. This bad habit would instantly be thrown on the scrap heap as the Big Dog very passionately informed us that we wouldn’t be relying on luck in the future to set our lighting up, there you go that told us!

Once Damian had demonstrated the setup we all got the chance then to re-create it and then shoot the lovely Charlie (not literally, no models were harmed in this experience!). We started by taking mainly head and shoulder shots, where we had a key light high above the models face and then another light as the background light or used as a hair light and we used lighting panels either side of Charlie to push the light back at her and reduce any shadows. We also used a reflector in front of Charlie to bounce more light back at her.

I was very pleased with the initial images, see below:

 

We then broke for lunch and in Big Dog style we had takeaway Pizza, I was in my element, all I needed was a nice cool Lager to compliment the Hawaiian Pizza, but to keep a clear head we all instead relied on Lesley’s excellent tea to compliment the Pizza.

At the point that I was about to explode from Pizza overload, the afternoon session got underway and we experimented further with various other enhanced butterfly lighting setups and again I was delighted with the quality of the images I took.

Damian throughout was very encouraging and always keen for us to actually try out the approaches he had demonstrated, I have attended too many courses in the past where you get so little practical time to actually implement your new skills.

The other highlight of the day was hearing Damian tell us how passionate he was about using speed lights for the lighting, as someone who has done a lot of Strobist shoots in the past this was music to my ears. It is amazing what you can achieve with a couple of speedlights, a reflector and some lighting panels.

The afternoon whizzed by with us all learning a great deal and by the end I didn’t want it to finish.

Damian then dished out our homework (like a gleeful teacher), which we had to do prior to our next session in 8-10 weeks’ time. This involved re-creating what we had learnt on the day at our own studios and bringing the results to the next MMOS day.

I left feeling exhausted but very happy with my days work and from the experience. I had met someone who I had admired for a long time and worked with him and learnt from him, while also meeting a great bunch of other students who I am sure will become friends over the coming months. No doubt in the future sessions we will go for a few beers and a curry the night before the mentoring day, although as Damian informed us he would not come if we went for a Chinese. Curry it is then..:-)

On the drive home I was already looking forward to the next session and undertaking my homework, I can’t say I ever thought that thought when I was at school in terms of looking forward to doing homework; however on this occasion I am pleased to say this was very different.

Thanks Damian for a great day and great experience and thanks Lesley for the tea, the welcome and the pizza, I am already a believer and am sure that over the coming months this experience will re-enthuse me to take the advanced steps I need to take my photography to the next level.

I will let you know how I get on in my next diary instalment after my next session in mid-April and give you an update on the pizza toppings we choose for the next lunchtime session.

If you were contemplating getting involved in the MMOS programme, don’t think about it anymore, get in contact with Damian and take the next step to maximizing your potential.

[Image above taken in afternoon session]

Until next time.

James Spencer

James is a professional photographer based in Bristol in the South West of England. James is self-taught in photography over a number of years; James is an active member of the SWPP and very much into the principle of continuous learning through photographic training. James is also a course tutor on a photography degree course in the South West where he enjoys mentoring upcoming photographers work and helping them develop into full-time pro’s. James’s passion is for photographing people through his portrait and wedding work. James is continuing with his photography journey in 2011 by being mentored by award-winning photographer Damian McGillicuddy. James’s other photographic interest is post production techniques using Photoshop.

James’s other passion is computing and the web, with his specific interests being web development, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), CMS solutions, social media and web marketing.

Twitter: @JSPhotographyUK

Web: www.jamesspencer-photography.co.uk

Facebook : James Spencer Photography