Sunday, August 31, 2008

Sad turn of recent events...

Having just been at Looking Glass Falls with some of the remaining workshop students a week ago (see post below), it's sad and surprising to read this article...

BREVARD – A Florida man suffered fatal injuries after he jumped from Looking Glass Falls Sunday afternoon.

The call came in about 2:40 p.m. that someone had plunged from the falls, an emergency dispatcher said. Crews reached the man and prepared him for transport. He was in and out of consciousness before crews airlifted him to Mission Hospitals about 3:30 p.m., Brevard Rescue Squad chief Vince Stone said. The man, identified as Ronald Conrad Brown, 49, of Navarre, Fla., died from his injuries Sunday night at the hospital, according to a news release from the Transylvania County Sheriff's Office. Reports from witnesses say Brown jumped from the falls, U.S. Forest Service district ranger Randy Burgess said. Family members at the scene said Brown has jumped off other waterfalls in the past, according to the news release.


But really... why in the world would anyone think to jump from these falls?!?

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

McWorkshop. Round 3. Bonus Day.

Amber here for one last workshop post. So the RockBand party ended pretty late on Friday night, but that didn't stop our girls from wanting to gather the next day for a little nature photography tour. We met the remaining students for lunch, and then headed up on the Blue Ridge Parkway to see what we could see. Corey's so generous with his time... and he doesn't have any time to spare, so you know he loves his job when he spends an entire extra day shooting with his students!

The first stop was beautiful Looking Glass Falls. It was fun to see everyone in a completely different photo-mode: tripods were out, polarizers were on. We were joined by what felt like half of the population of Asheville, making a clear shot of the falls somewhat difficult. Most people don't know that Corey is a very accomplished nature and wildlife photographer in addition to being the best wedding shooter I know. He's an active member of the CNPA

Corey shot his new infrared.



Serious concentration.







Corey grabbed this fun image of me. It was a little scary to climb out in the water, on those slippery rocks, gear in hand. I'm a clutz, but thankfully no major mishaps occurred.



From the falls, we headed on up the mountain, stopping periodically at overlooks. I've grown up with the mountains, so I had forgotten just how amazing they are. I am very thankful that these girls reminded me to stop and look at these spectacular views.






I think Maureen felt like she was on top of the world. This moment totally made me tear up.



Hard at work (or is it play?)...





Corey's big glass... have you ever tried hand-holding a 200-400 f4 before?! It's not easy!



And a moment of introspection. I just wanted to close my eyes and feel the perfect breeze.



Last stop was the gorgeous French Broad river. I think Corey captured the vista beautifully.



Whew. I think I'm done (except for the winning contest images)! It was a wonderful week, and although I'm glad for a break, I'm simultaneously sad that we don't already have the dates set for the next McWorkshop! I always learn so much, and the relationships that are forged are amazing.



much love.

-amber

Amber's Blog Signature



Tuesday, August 26, 2008

McWorkshop. Round 3. Day 5.

Amber again. 

The final official day of the McWorkshop arrived. Friday was contest day, and our awesome attendees had stayed up crazy late (some not even going to bed!) the night before working on their contest submissions. Our morning started off with Will from ShootQ giving us a quick ShootQ tutorial. After he finished sharing this awesome studio management software with us, Corey took the stage for his final day. One of our awesome students, Jessica, had to leave just after lunch in order to get back for a wedding, so Corey gave the whirlwind version of his Lightroom tutorial and his DAM (Digital Asset Management) workflow so that she could see both... all before lunch! 

Lunch was at Cafe on the Square, and was sponsored by ShootQ. (Thanks so much to Will for coming up, and to Rachel and Andrew and Mark for being wonderful and dear friends. Much love.) 

(um, ew!)




Good times, as always.



After lunch, we did the contest. We were so stoked to see the contest entries and winners! We're going to do a separate blog post on that later this week. [Edit: I'd have to say that all of the contest entries were really great!]

Corey wrapped up the day of teaching with a little more Lightroom instruction and his final mentoring sessions. We broke for a short naptime, and then met back for our final dinner.
Photographer's Edit sponsored a delicious dinner at Fiddlin' Pigs.



We usually love Fiddlin' Pigs for its fun bluegrass and clogging, but we had never seen it this packed! We opted to sit outside... where we could hear each other talk, but still enjoy the music!



I was so excited. Corey's wonderful wife and my dearest friend, Jill, was able to join us for dinner this time. I had missed her all week....she'd not been feeling well. 



The weather outside was ominous... but the rain managed to miss us. Whew.



Fun times!





(And just for fun... Mariah with giant food, one more time.)



After dinner, we headed back to the studio for a few cocktails and RockBand! Have I mentioned how much I love RockBand?? Someone commandeered Corey's camera, so we have no idea who grabbed these images... but thankfully, someone did. Corey and I were obviously too busy playing.







One more post to come. I'll get it up as soon as I can!

McWorkshoppers... we miss you!!

-amber

Amber's Blog Signature


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Monday, August 25, 2008

McWorkshop. Round 3. Day 4.

Amber here again... Thursday was a huge day for the McWorkshoppers. The day we take the group to the Biltmore Estate has historically been my favorite part of the week, and this was no exception. We had a wonderful time! 

The day started out with Corey's intensive explorations concerning extreme shooting techniques and micro-composition. I was excited that Corey had had the opportunity to discuss some of his theories on lighting, as well as share information about specific techniques he uses when shooting, before turning the students loose with our beautiful models at the most amazing location. I was so excited to see their progress and their final images! 

I remembered to stop and grab a quick image of Corey imparting knowledge to the class before we headed out for our shoot.



At the February McWorkshop, we headed to the Bilmore Estate and it was insanely cold (see blog post here), but this time it was so wonderful to be there this week with absolutely amazing weather!



This group was so excited to be at the Biltmore Estate. (Actually, this group was pretty excited about most things.) They were awesome to be around...



Corey had one of his spectacularly beautiful brides model for us. Sadly, she isn't getting married until October, so we can't show you any of those images until after her wedding. I've had a sneak peak though, and he captured her beautifully! Maybe we'll get a chance to post those sometime after her wedding. 

We were blessed to have an awesome couple, John and Lindsey Bamber (from Chattanooga!) return to model/attend for the second time in a row. They are amazing photographers, as well as spectacular models. A huge thanks goes out to them for coming and hanging out with us! As Corey was busy shooting his bride this time, most of these shots are mine:











We also want to say thanks to the lovely Liz from The Purple Iris for providing us with gorgeous bouquets for our models. We love you, Liz!







Tara joined us because it was one of her brides who Corey was photographing. She's SO much fun to have around! She borrowed one of Corey's D3s for a few shots...





At the end of the shoot, Corey took us to this cool sunflower patch. I love these images that he captured of John and Lindsey in that location!





After our shoot, we enjoyed a tour and tasting at the winery, and then headed for dinner at Usual Suspects. Apparently, we've decided we like that place.

Corey received a fun new toy in the mail in between the shoot at Biltmore and dinner, so he had a fun time playing with that! [Edit: Corey here. It's been a long time coming, but we finally were able to send off one of my cameras for conversion to infrared! We've had it boxed up and ready to go for about a year and just couldn't seem to get around to sending it off. Well, thanks to Jeremy's, Katie's and Amber's amazing help recently, we finally sent it off... and it's cool! More later.]

I just want to note, that this first image of a self portrait is well after dark, hand-held at 1/5th of a second. Darn fun.



Our new favorite hangout. Darts and delicious food, what more could a gal want?!



Corey using his new infrared camera. (That's Will from ShootQ in the background. ShootQ is another one of our amazing sponsors for this workshop!)



Mariah may kill me for posting this image... but I had NEVER seen such a huge porkchop!



And just a few images from the darts portion of the night. We got pretty competitive, so there was more shooting darts than shooting photos....

But Corey did grab this brilliant image of Mariah, scoring some serious "style points". [Edit: Corey again.  Interesting side note- those were fully-tinted sun glasses. I'd only had the infrared about an hour at that point, but I just thought it was interesting that it removed the tint.]



And another of someone's lucky bullseye... I'll never know who, since it's someone who stole my camera when I wasn't paying attention!



Final days' posts coming up soon!

-amber

Amber's Blog Signature

 


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