David Williams - Day 1

Steve and I were so excited to throw open the doors of our studio today and welcome David Williams, as well as twenty other photographers, inside! We knew that this Master of Photography was going to have a lot to offer us. We started the day with some AV's and were able to get a sense of the work David produces. The first thing I noticed was the simplicity of his composition and the warmth of light in his images. He emphasized over and over again the importance of keeping it simple and exploring your creativity. Photojournalism has been such a buzz word in wedding photography for so long and David had this to say on the subject: photojournalism is about telling the story...you can still interact and direct your subjects and tell that story. Of course, I'm paraphrasing what he said, but I really appreciate the truth to his approach - it's not about labeling yourself and sticking to only what that label is, it's about finding the key elements to further the story and using your skills, talent and creativity to tell the story.

We spent much of the afternoon making images that David calls "Detail Miniatures". It's something that Steve and I do, but not to the same extent as David. His reasoning for these images is simple: the details provide the context in which the story is being told. How very true that statement is. A wedding is a cultural ritual and to understand the ritual, you must first understand the context in which it is taking place - details do that. So, he let twenty photographers loose on our studio in an effort to demonstrate that beautiful details can be found anywhere. I am very curious to see what each person found and made images of. I know that I looked at the studio with a new eye and I was able to create some artisitic, some graphic, and some architectural details that I had not neccesarily seen before. It was also kind of creepy to have that number of people with cameras crawling around the place - it felt a little like we were being stripped naked in front of an audience!

I am going to add images as the seminar continues, but right now I am exhausted and need to head to bed. David has certainly made me think and for that I am so grateful and excited to hear what's coming next. Now if only Evrim would keep his damn camera out of my face!