Saturday, March 27th - Nordic Blue

I've been spoiled by the shooting at the Vancouver Photo Workshops, the lighting set-ups, the quality of the models, the working conditions and the environment..  I've even been spoiled by Langara.  I signed up for a full one-day fashion shoot that for $200 promised the following; at least ten models, one of whom would be pregnant, body painting and full hair and make-up.  What did we actually get? Six or seven women, two men, no body paint, no pregnant model.  In other words, we got ripped off.  


Ten days to go before the shoot, half my money was refunded.  The shoot was cut back to three hours.  They started fifteen minutes late.  The lighting systems, or more accurately the lack thereof, were a complete and utter joke.  They were using mono-blocks and Home Depot halogen lights.  I'm not kidding.  "Ambient light" was a big selling point.  I can get ambient light in the alley behind my f**king house.  The mono blocks didn't work properly and weren't synced.  I have better lights at home.  Seriously.


The models...  Well, to be kind, they were working for free.  Or, in other words TFP.  Time (or Trade) For Prints.  Bet they get some killer shots for their Portfolio from the GWC's with their D50s and Canon Rebels.  One of the models I had worked with before.  She was bombarded with sweating, greasy little GWC's in bad trucker hats.  You can't make this shit up.  They were shooting portraits with their built in, on-camera flashes.  Gary Fong Light Spheres were very popular.  As were LumiQuest diffusers.  One guy said he couldn't justify the sixty dollars to spend on a LumiQuest.  Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.


Two of the models were seriously overweight.  I like curvaceous.  I like shooting pin-up and glamour.  Burlesque babes are fabulous.  Marilyn Monroe was a size 14.  But these poor girls were poured into outfits that just made them look bad.  It was gross incompetence and desperation on the part of the event promoter.  Several of the models had skin so bad that pancake make-up couldn't conceal their blemishes.  Can you say Photo Shop marathon?


The other photographers?  Out of the ten, there were actually two I had worked with before in other workshops.  Like me they were shaking their heads.  The rest.  Brutal.  The lighting set up was using on-camera flashes to trigger the mono-blocks.  There was zero shooting etiquette.  The models were young and inexperienced.  Faced with four, five, six and even at one point seven photographers all shooting at once they were like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi.  Flashes were going off all over.  Great shots were captured I am sure.  The guy in the trucker hat had such bad BO it made you want to gag.  You can't make this stuff up.


It was a cluster f**k.  After an hour of  ludicrousness, I decided I would rather spend the afternoon with friends, so I packed up my gear and left.


The worst part?  The jerk who got all the models to work for free and ripped everyone else for at least a hundred dollars was using the event to shoot for himself.  He kept disappearing with the best models and left a disaster in his wake.  A real class act.  And he plans to make these disasters a regular event.  


The best irony of all?  He calls his company Great Taste Photography.  


Nikon D700 and Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.


-- Vince Hemingson