Workshoppin'

Was it a bad idea to take an intense, week-long workshop in the middle of my busiest time of year?

Yes it was.

I spent Monday-Friday of last week driving to Portland every day to hang out with the legendary Todd Hido. It was awesome. I have also shot 10 weddings and half a dozen other assignments over the span of a month so I’m losing my mind.

The workshop was cool. Todd is an EXTREMELY open and generous person. It was alarming at times as he casually showed us every single detail of his career and business. His Lightroom settings, his gear, his inventory sheet for every print edition run he’s ever made. He opened his personal email multiple times while hooked up to a projector. It felt like I could have asked him to show me his bank account and he would have said “Sure, why not?” Every day of the workshop ended with him asking, almost pleading “What else do you need to know? How can I help?” Maybe he feels like he needs to be like this since attendees are paying quite a bit of money to take the workshop. Maybe he feels like he needs to pay-forward all of the support and guidance he received early in his career. Either way, it was really refreshing. No attitude, no mystique.

These types of workshops are great because 1) you learn some stuff/get to feed off the vibes of someone who has broken through and cracked the code of success, 2) You meet a bunch of other like-minded and hungry artists, and 3) it can be a real kick in the pants creatively. I always push myself to make a lot of work when I take a workshop. It’s difficult because it can really shake your brain and habits loose. You question everything you’ve done before. You try to find new methods and you also anticipate that everyone else in class will make cool work too and you need to crush them…

Mostly joking there. Unfortunately, the 2 big workshops I’ve done have both started strong and then ended as kind of a mess. I did a zine-making workshop in Cape Cod a few years ago and it all led up to making zines the last day but WHOOPS the printers are all broken and no one left with a zine. The problem at the end of this workshop was that half the class shot on film and there were resources for people to get overnight darkroom services for the work they make throughout the week to present it by the end. Apparently the handling and scanning of the film was not great and people weren’t happy with the results. None of the film shooters wanted to show any of the work. I ended up seeing very little of what people made and I was bummed about that. Also, this workshop was going on in tandem with two other workshops (by Christian Patterson and Antoine D’Agata) and the last day was supposed to be about everyone openly sharing work from the week and the coordination of that fell apart and that didn’t happen. I also recognize that most artists are probably less manic and spontaneous than me and might want to sit and ruminate with their work a little before sharing it. I come from a punk rock background where it’s your community obligation to make something NOW and share it NOW, warts and all.

I really busted my ass to make some work and I really wanted to share it and get feedback. I was able to have a one-on-one meeting with Todd to show the work and he really seemed to like it. But, again, he’s such an extremely sweet and generous guy that no matter what I showed him he would have said “I see what you are going for and you did great. Can I buy you a sandwich?”

So let’s get to some pictures. Todd is best known for moody, nighttime photography of suburban houses. On Tuesday night he did a night photography tutorial. It was pretty cool. Very simple. The best advice he gave was that if you want to shoot at night you should get really high powered led flashlight. Not for lighting your pictures but for flashing in someone’s eyes if they try to mess with you. He said it many times. Flash it in their eyes and run. I love it.

Behind the scenes of Todd's night shooting demo

Then I set out and did some night shooting of my own. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t done before but again, workshops can light a little flame under your butt.

This last shot is lit with my car’s break lights, a trick I learned when Todd taught it to his bestie Jason Mamoa on his HBO show On The Roam.

Wednesday was more of a free-day/shoot day. We met as a class in the morning to show our night shots and then were set free to go make some work. I anticipated this and had a shoot planned. My friend and occasional second shooter/assistant Alicia has an amazing house that is a real 1970s time capsule. Alicia let me shoot there because we both agreed that Todd would get a kick out of the retro vibes.

Oh yeah, then the day after the workshop ended I shot a wedding. I got to hang out on some boats.

It was a good time. Sometimes I shoot a wedding and stop and think to myself “these are really nice people.” Not always, but this time that was definitely the case. Good vibes all around. At times when I feel like the world is going crazy it’s really nice to be in a room with either a bunch of NICE, not-crazy people. A room full of hungry artists who want to collaborate and have cool discussions or a tent with 100 happy people celebrating love and dancing to “Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League. There’s still good shit out there.

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I’m still trying to process the week but overall I feel good about it. Even though this is a really busy time and my brain is basically mush the timing of this was nice. I feel like it will help motivate me as the busy season winds down and I have more time to think about art more than business stuff.

Speaking of which, Photo A-GoGo is happening soon! Submissions are currently open here!