I had the opportunity to spend 4 days with some of the most awesome photographers and friends at the Elevate workshop in Orlando in June. Garrett Nudd and his wife Joy hosted the workshop. I have followed Garrett’s rise to success and fame through one of the photographer’s forums that I am active with. I am always excited to see the new images he posts and now check out Garrett’s blog daily. Garrett has the ability to get his brides and couples to do things that I have never seen anyone else do. His bridal, engagement and wedding images look straight out of a high fashion magazine editorial. Beautiful, sexy and different! We always tease him that he works will in bathrooms!
For the last several years, Wedding Photojournalism has been the big thing in wedding photography. Last year, I took Denis Reggie’s workshop and he is the king of wedding photojournalism! See my blog from last year. Then, in February, I took the LaCour workshop and they produce some of the most gorgeous and elegant images in the storytelling of the wedding event. Another blog link. Andrew and Rachel actually sat in on this workshop. While this is totally my style of shooting weddings, being inobtrusive, documenting special moments, creating family legacy, I was struggling with the portraits. I have so many brides that want bridal portraits, but expect the dress spread out, look at the camera pose. I knew until I could show that a bridal portrait could be so much more that it would be hard to get someone to do the crazy things I wanted. The same thing with the couple portraits, I didn’t have sexy, out of the box images to show, so it was hard to say “kiss her neck, look sexy”. Of course, I totally understand that not all couples are going to want those type photos and that is totally fine! I don’t want anyone to do something that they aren’t comfortable with!!!!
The workshop kicked off with a beautiful party at the Solutions Bridal Salon in Winter Park. They have many of Garrett’s images on their walls. Garrett and Joy brought in some excellent guest speakers! Gene Higa and Ann Hamilton came in from San Franscisco. I was so excited when they were added as guest speakers. I have followed their blogs for almost a year, too! Lisa Konecny of E Events Design gave some great advice on working and building relationships with other vendors. She had a great influence on the new marketing materials I am working on. Zack Arias does his own lighting workshops and I really regret that I couldn’t stay over for it in Orlando, but I will get to go to the One Light Workshop in a couple weeks.
During the workshop, we actually got to do some shooting! First, we met Garrett at an empty house in the process of remodeling – not the typical spot to do a couple session! Garrett led the group as we shot along side of the master! Then, later that night, we shot 4 different sessions of models. My photographer friends from Atlanta, Katie and Chris Torres, were one of the couples that I worked with that evening. I had shot with them in Chattanooga last November, so I have quite a collection of images of them! Here is link to those images. Since I had to get the model images finished up this week, I thought I would share some of them with you. I’d love to hear what you think!
Here’s the slideshow of some of my favorites.
Me with Garrett and Joy.
Me with Gene Higa.
Me with Tomas Flint.
Me with Katie and Chris.
Kevin Meyers, Katie and Rachel.
Garrett, Tomas and a super niiiiicccce guy, Frank DiMeo.
My shoot out partner -Ty Miller, Frank, Andrew, Tomas and Adam Hudson. 
Sticky, Brandy and Katie. I am always amazed at photographers that can work in stylish footwear.
Eric Laurits in action.
Garrett leading the group.
