A few weeks back I went on a photography workshop in London with the inspiring Mexican wedding photographer Fer Juaristi. AKA: The FerShop!
It was a wonderful day, with a great bunch of shooters and I left a scrambled buzzing mess from all the input. Â But it reminded me that to stay sharp in this game you need to never stop learning. Â Die a student, as they say. Â Soon as you think you know everything and your way is best in this line of work, and suddenly you’re the old guy with a pocket watch painting flowers back into black and white photos. Â We all started somewhere, and there’ll always be kids nipping at your heels, so it’s great to take stock of how things are in the industry, and to network and hang out with people who inspire you.
IÂ already knew 9 or so of the 15 attendees at the workshop, and no-one on the workshop was a newby to the game. Â So – it wasn’t as much a bunfight for portfolio images, as an opportunity to hang with Fer, hear how he does things & how he & his pals changed the wedding scene in Mexico, and to watch him shoot/edit. Â Plus the models who volunteered up their time were Holly and her man Ross Harvey, who is in my opinion one of the UK’s best wedding shooters! Â Google Ross too, he’s ace.
All in all it was a fantastic day and while photography wasn’t my focus there, here are a few pics from the day…
This was fun seeing how Fer likes to use hard direct sunlight for bold, sexy contrast and clever framing.
Both photographers by trade, This was Ross & Holly’s first ever portrait shoot and while they squirmed a bit, Fer was hilarious at employing his personality to get laughs!
You’ve got to check out this guys work – he’s so good:Â ferjuaristi.com/blog/
While Fer went back to unload his cards, he set us a challenge to pick a person in the group we don’t know so well and go apply what we’d learnt for 5 minutes each.
We then had to submit a pic by the next day to be judged for a prize!
So – I ended up with the lovely Eneka of Eneka Stewart  Photography, and it was fun trying to get an ace portrait in 5mins.
This was the image I submitted. Â I just liked the lines and colours
These were a few other faves…
And this is the full team! Â A great bunch and loads of fun. Â Big up Mr Fer for being so open and positive and fun.
Now to implement what I learned…
Keep shooting & keep learning y’all!
B