Happy Thursday!
Okay so I’ll admit it. I was brazen enough to ask Joe if he’d have his picture taken with me. 🙂
I mean he’s the main reason I came to the class in the first place. We had a spectacular session with him today. Joe taught studio lighting with speed lights and strobes. Our subject was none other than country music star Ricky Skaggs. Ricky posed for 16 photographers after Joe’s course and let each of us take 6 – 8 shots of him in different poses.
I’ll show more of that as time goes by. I am usually a bit nervous during a portrait shoot under normal conditions. But having Joe McNally and 16 other photographers looking over your shoulder brought on a new dimension of nervousness.
Yesterday’s session was held at Dury’s Camera Store. They let us use their entire back room and had it set up as a class room and studio. We had Joe McNally for around four hours yesterday and I learned a lot of things. The problem is trying to apply all that new-found knowledge and then remember it all. 🙂
The images I’m showing you today were taken on Tuesday at the Cannonsburgh Village. Historic Cannonsburgh Village represents approximately 100 years of early Tennessee life from the 1830s to the 1930s. Within the village is a gristmill, school-house, telephone operator’s house, the University House, the Leeman House, a museum, a caboose, the Wedding Chapel, a doctor’s office, a general store, a blacksmith’s shop, a well, and other points of pioneering interest.
I continued to have problems with my tripod head so I couldn’t do any long exposure work or real detail images. I had to opt for an on camera flash, which is never good solution and I did a little light painting as well. While the results were satisfactory they certainly aren’t what I wanted.
Today is the last day of my class. I’ve learned a lot and have had a lot of mixed emotions about the experience. I’ll reflect on those emotions later when I’ve had time to collectively think through the entire experience.
We travel to Hot Rod Heaven today to photograph a lot of different types of vehicles. I’ve seen some of the vehicles we’ll get to photograph from following Bill Fortney’s blog. It should be a fun albeit warm morning. I did buy a new ball head for my tripod at Dury’s camera store yesterday so I won’t have to struggle with the tripod today.
Then tomorrow night is the Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder Show at the Ryman Auditorium. It’s going to be a real treat to see the man we’ve all come to know and enjoy as a “fellow student” take the stage and do that which he does so well.
So that’s it for today. I thought I would have thousands of images from this experience but we really don’t make a lot of images. The emphasis is on producing quality images not a large quantity and that after all is what we should be doing.
It’s been a humbling experience having your photos critiqued by 4 professionals and 16 other photographers. What I have taken away though is a fresh way of looking at things. The creative talent in the room is robust and I’m just trying to suck up as much as I can. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day. Stay cool and be careful.
