That’s right folks, after some expressed interest toward a workshop centered on pushing your basic understanding of photography and visual storytelling, my good friend Brian Hirschy and I are going to do just that November 5 in Dallas, Texas.

What and Why:

Foundations workshop is focused on strengthening your abilities to see and create images that utilize an advanced understanding of where we start out with our cameras and vision. The all-day workshop moves beyond just learning how to make your camera work, and into an area that emphasizes producing images that marry our abilities and technique in creating compelling, attractive, and interesting photographs. More importantly, Foundations workshop is geared toward hands-on instruction in how to create images that say something more than a snapshot.

In one day, we’ll cover in-depth the following areas:

• Seeing Light I: Color & Shadows
• Storytelling Composition & Depth
• Competence with your camera
• Assessing Images: Conducting useful, real-world edits and critiques of your work
• Seeing Light II: Portraits
• Engaging Basic Off-Camera Lighting Setups
• Getting Comfortable With Digital Workflow Using Adobe Lightroom

Where and When:

Foundations workshop will be held at QuadPhoto Dallas, a large commercial and editorial studio managed by my good friend and outstanding photographer, R.J. Hinkle. The address for the studio is:

16650 Westgrove Drive, Suite 175
Addison, Texas 75001

We’ll start at 8:30 a.m., on Saturday, November 5, and wrap up on or a little after 5:00 p.m. We might just squeeze in a TweetUp after the workshop as well!

Price:

The price for Foundations is $325.00 (catered lunch, model fee, and all the coffee you can drink included in the price), and you can register on Brian’s site here: FOUNDATIONS REGISTRATION. You can also contact me through my site here (just put Foundations in the subject field).

Foundations is also sponsored by BlackRapid camera straps, and that means some free gear from arguably the best camera strap manufacturer out there!

If you really want to start moving beyond the basics and begin to build the way you see and achieve your images, Foundations workshop is purposed with that in mind: growing your photographic eye, deepening your understanding of light, and creating a workflow that complements your style of shooting.

Who:

Here’s a bit more about the Foundations instructors:

Brian is a working travel photographer living in western China who has a passion for teaching photography, participating in the growing photographic community in China, and helping NGO’s in Southeast Asia communicate their amazing stories when possible – all in an effort to actively do good rather than simply complain.

In late 2009 Brian helped start a company,Plateau Photo Tours, that facilitates socially-conscious one-of-a-kind photo tours throughout Tibet, China, and Hong Kong – providing socially responsible and culturally non-destructive photo opportunities throughout the region.

Brian has been shooting the Tibetan regions of western China since 2005 and has travelled extensively in these areas.

Brian’s photography can be seen at brianhirschy.com (500px, archives). You can also follow him on Twitter.

Jerod is an editorial and natural history photographer based in Lubbock, Texas. Starting out as a student of celebrated Texas photographer, Wyman Meinzer, Jerod quickly developed a passion for visual storytelling and educating future generations of shooters. His work ranges from environmental portraiture and travel imagery to conservation photography and photojournalism, and it can be seen in a variety of regional and national magazines and book publications.

In 2006, Jerod began teaching photography courses at Texas Tech University, and since then he has led students in a variety of course topics, including domestic and international field courses. He is a regular contributor to the Manfrotto School of Xcellence, and he is set to release his first book focused on visual storytelling with PeachPit/New Riders this winter. He is also a partner in Badlands Design and Production, a publishing house for high-end coffee table photography books.

Jerod’s photography can be seen at www.jerodfoster.com. You can follow his blog here, and catch up with him on Twitter at: @jerodfoster

We photographers spend a great deal of time creating images of other people, and for good reason! That’s our job, or at least for those that take portraits. While we enjoy this aspect of our job, do you ever think that making portraits of yourself is sometimes just as important? Think about it for a moment. If you’re in school for photography, you surely have been given, or will be given, a self-portrait assignment, and if you are a professional, or aspiring to be one, there are certain advantages to periodically photographing yourself. You can probably think of many reasons why this may be important, but if you need a jumpstart, here are five reasons I can point out:

1. Provide yourself with some free PR/marketing material. How many photographers do you know with some great portraits of themselves that they use for their own headshots? A lot! I’m willing to bet, also, that many of those shots were taken by their respected selves. If you want to get a photograph that you like, that you can use, that fits your style, then take a portrait of yourself. For example, the portrait above was taken while co-teaching a class in Junction, Texas. At the time, it was the newest self-portrait (come to think of it, it still is), and a magazine needed a feature shot. There is was, exactly how I wanted it, and it was fresh. This means I didn’t have to dig through older profile photographs and give them one that potentially could have been seen on other material bearing my name.

2. Discover your potential. Want to try a new portrait technique? Don’t have a willing model near? Use yourself! One of the easiest people, and most challenging, to work with is yourself! Work on a new lighting setup, test out new locations, while at the same time, you work on building your ability, producing some usable content for reason #1, and maybe more significant, bolstering your confidence in trying something new and similar with said new techniques, locations, etc.

3. Creativity and Perspective. Wow, what a wonderful time to be super creative! We shoot digitally, we have a host of post-production techniques and software at our fingertips, and taking self-portraits gives you the time to take creativity to the max in certain situations. Also, the time you spend being creative with your own self-portrait is just prep time on becoming more and more creative with your client portraiture. You can also create the correct perspective you want in your own portraits. Seeing and photographing yourself in a way that is self-reflective may also help you discover what is to be conveyed in a portrait of another.

4. Social media needs better photographs. Alright, so this should probably go under Reason #1, but I believe it needs its own point of significance. One of the most visual elements that belongs to you is your profile photos used for social media entities, such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. A quality profile photo, a visually creative and stimulating, telling self-portrait shows your ability with the camera as well as portrays a level of professionalism on your part. And who’s kidding who, many profile photographs just plain stink, and photographers, especially those who are in the business, ought to consider how theirs look before uploading and saying, “Hey World, this is me!”

5. It’s fun and educational! Taking self-portraits shouldn’t feel cheesy, unless that’s the feeling you’re going for. Self-portraits are good to have, and you should enjoy taking them, for the reasons above, and for whatever other beneficial reasons you can think of! Ever since art began, self-portraits have found their way to viewers, from Van Gogh, to Andy Warhol, to you! Each new portrait you make can be educational in its approach and valuable in what you might just learn! Sharing your self-portraits with others will also turn up needed review and critique (and we all know as photographers we should listen to constructive criticism).

Just google self-portrait, and you might just find inspiration for your next shot! If you have any more reasons why we photogs ought to take a few images of ourselves from time to time, I would love to read them in the comments section! More to come…

Without sounding too pretentious, I would like to make some thanks to the Texas Techsan magazine! I have been shooting for them for several years, and their editors, Jean Anne Cantore and Jennifer Ritz are top notch writers and magazine organizers! On top of that, I am proud to call them friends. Jennifer and I even work, and are working, on several other projects together, which has been fun and challenging in the same boat!

The Techsan is the official magazine for the Texas Tech Alumni Association, and I was fortunate to grace the cover of the current issue! I have shot several covers for them, and many stories, but I was surprised and elated that I would actually BE on the cover! Inside is a fantastic photo-essay of my work, and Jennifer put together a great piece to go with it, including statements made by some of my biggest influences and mentors, including Wyman Meinzer. Brandi Price, the magazine designer did a wonderful job as well, allowing me to cram a few extra pictures in last minute!

Thanks again to everyone who had a hand in this! It’s a great honor, and I appreciate all the opportunities given over the past several years and in the future!

More to come on Texas Magazine, and a few more topics!

For the most part, winter is a pretty uneventful season, photographically speaking, in West Texas, especially for a guy that does quite a bit of his location portraiture outside! I’m not bashing West Texas, I’m a huge fan, but I have to work around the common brown of the ground and empty sky (I’m picky, but when you work with the guy that basically defined the Texas Sky with his photographs on a regular basis, you pick up like tendencies)! Most of my recent work has been indoors, which is a blessing in itself sometimes, because it can get oddly cold on the Llano Estacado.

While winter is uneventful in terms of shooting much outside here, it does create opportunities to get some much-needed maintenance and reflection accomplished! It really gives me time to think about this perfect storm (no, the shot above was not taken in West Texas, actually in south Texas in The Valley), a mesh of uncertainty on the same level as a great deal of opportunity! The economy is a pain right now, a real hassle for a greater part of the nation, and I’m lucky enough to notice how it’s affecting me but able to not let it take total control of how I operate my business. In fact, it is breeding creativity in pushing work where I never have before, and this fact can be attributed to my sentiments in a few posts back. I get to do what I love everyday, all day, and no matter how much the economy forces me to eat sandwiches and macaroni, it’s worth working toward a more “golden” opportunity in the future, no matter what happens (dang, I told all you I wouldn’t get “inspirational” on you again).

So on to what this is really about. You’re reading this on my newer blog, a transition I made a few weeks ago, and part of a greater transition of my presence on the World Wide Web. I’m in the process of updating my official Web site to integrate my Photoshelter (good guys over there) archive, which means that purchasing prints and other products will be an easy, efficient and effective process in the future. You’ll no doubt see changes take place on this site as well as my overall Web presence, but it’s all in mind to provide content in a more suitable fashion and style! Thanks for being patient with me.

The blog content will change somewhat in the sense that I will be adding newer content in the form of reviews, news, and hopefully guest blogs and/or interviews. I think these additions will be worthwhile since I get to teach some of the greatest students ever at Texas Tech University! However, hopefully they will not be the only ones benefiting from this content. The photoshoots and stories behind the people and places I visit will still play a heavy role in the blog, but there will definitely be more interactivity.

I hope you enjoy the changes that are to come, and I look forward to your viewing, comments and suggestions! Thanks for sticking around, and I hope you keep coming back. If you have anything in particular you would like to see on the blog, just drop me a line in the comments, or e-mail me: jerod.foster@gmail.com.

As for now, I’ll leave you with this awesome video clip of an interview on Conan O’Brien, thanks to Tom Chandler at The Copywriter Underground! The video really made my day, and I hope it makes you pause to reflect a little (in a humorous, life is good and not going to get worse kind of way of course).

More on the way!