Big News!!
Photographers Alliance Workshops – my new workshop company!! I have started a new photography workshop and tour company called Photographers Alliance Workshops or PAW for short. Check out paworkshops.net for more info and lots of teaching articles and information. It is all very exciting, at least for me. I am hoping it will be for you as well. The company grew out of my frustration with how photography workshops were being run and organized. I just got fed up with photo companies taking participants to the right places at the wrong time, with leaders who seldom lead, have no teaching experience, put themselves first and make people feel like it is honor to be with them and with crushing overhead, rigid thinking and a participant-last attitude. The things I have seen behind the scenes would make your brain numb. I have seen companies hire people to teach workshops they had never met or had even seen teach before figuring that they will fill a workshop or tour and that is what counts. I have seen leaders berate and embarrass students and then get hired back because the class was full. I have seen leaders take more pictures than their participants (you are getting screwed if this subsidized photography occurs on your workshop or tour) or not let people photograph what they just photographed. I have seen leaders step in front of participants so they could get their shot, the ‘important’ shot, first, leaders who wouldn’t take people to the really good places because they wanted it for themselves and leaders who actually charge extra for the ‘privilege’ of sitting next to them. My God, what egos! Well, PAW is not about egos or subsidized shooting or getting bodies no matter what. PAW is about you, the photography enthusiast and student. I have personally selected all the PAW leaders based on me knowing them and knowing what kind of people and photographers they are. PAW leaders are teachers first; they are there for you. And PAW doesn’t go to places unless it is the right time to be there and the conditions are best for teaching and photography. So we won’t go to National Parks when they are packed with people. We won’t offer trips to places that may or may not work. We won’t send primary leaders who have never been to a place before and we won’t add participants when the trip is already full. I stake my reputation on the Photographers Alliance Workshops; its leaders, its locations, its instruction. I wouldn’t do this unless I knew we had the best of each. That is my promise to you.
Welcome
Welcome to my Blog! This space is reserved for all thoughts worth and while, use and less, non and sense. There will be a little of this and a lot of that- heavy on photography and writing but with sprinkles of odd observations of life and love, wine and whine and all other things that get stuck in my small but perfectly formed brain and need to get out. Consider this blog as a trip on my mental plumber’s snake twisting around in the clogged corners of my mind, gunked up with thoughts nane and inane. I can’t guarantee material momentous or magical but I can promise content of moderate mirth and merriment. You might even learn something! It is going to be some ride; I hope you enjoy it. Welcome aboard.