the Best Way to Learn

One thing I missed out on when becoming a professional photographer is doing an apprenticeship. A huge amount of knowledge can be acquired from working with experienced professional photographers. Unfortunately learning by doing an apprenticeship isn't as viable as it used to be, but by working with a pro one will gain invaluable experience. I'm so happy that I had the opportunity to work with two awesome, and extremely experienced, photographers this past week. Thanks so much to both Gabor Gasztonyi and Francois Cleroux!!
 

Gabor Gasztonyi's documentary photography is poignant and striking. His book on Vancouver's downtown Eastside is powerful. I first noticed Gabor's photography when I saw his rodeo images and became an instant fan. However Gabor has also been doing portraiture for many years and I am grateful to learn that aspect of the business. I am sold on the use of a light meter for studio portrait photography and yes, it is possible to take good portraits in a couple seconds!

Francois Cleroux primarily is a fine art photographer now but he used to work as a fashion photographer. Francois is a perfectionist with a strong technical knowledge not only in image composition, but also camera equipment, software and lighting. A couple simple tips I learned from Francois are to use a color checker card and to use frequency separation for skin retouching in post production. The images for the L'Oreal shoot are awesome!