Before I share today’s post, I just wanted to let all our readers know that today is the LAST day to take advantage of the Early Bird Registration for our upcoming Seattle Workshop. I think we’ve got 3-4 spots left before it’s sold out. So CLICK HERE to watch a trailer, read the details and get registered!

Day One of the Discovery Workshop was Discovering the Artist Within. If you didn’t get to see the two previous posts about Day One, click on 31 Discoveries and My Self Portrait. But since this was a three day workshop, do you mind if I keep telling you about the other two days?

For Day Two, we all drove the snake curved road to Stinson Beach, Rick’s stomping ground, and learned about Discovering the Mystery and Beauty Within Your Subject.

As the spring rain pinged the windows, the fire kept us warm as Rick walked us through his process when capturing the mystery of his subject.

Rick is known for his striking portraits of celebrity athletes like Lance Armstrong and this cool guy below. 🙂

It was awesome to listen to Rick share his methods b/c he has the interesting challenge of photographing someone who has had their picture taken hundreds of times. Think of how challenging it would be! So how does Rick make his experience with his subject feel new and fresh? How does he draw them out? This was the gold he shared with all the attendees. It was awesome!

Leslie, a local Stinson Beach resident, agreed to be a model for Rick that day. Aside from being our model, she is also an amazing chef and catered our dinner that night. Rick took all the principles he had talked about in the morning, and he showed us what it looks like in real life. It was awesome to watch him work with Leslie.

Imagine the pressure of not only having your picture taken, but 30 photographers watching! (one of the gals had the fun idea of everyone posing like they are taking a picture behind Leslie. Loved that idea!)

Despite Leslie being nervous, Rick gently drew her out. It was beautiful to watch her blossom in front of us all.

Since cooking is such a part of her life, he asked her to bring a favorite apron to the photo shoot.

This is one of my favorite images that Rick grabbed. Workshop ladies, remember him setting this shot up? Don’t you love how it turned out! So much energy coming out of the image!

Rick also commented on how Leslie has this regal look about her. So he went a different direction and caught this style of image.

After the teaching came the challenging and rewarding part! Before the workshop, we were able to organize a number of local, Stinson Beach people from the guy who has surfed Stinson Beach waves for 30 yrs. to the most amazing gardener you’ve ever met. Since this was an “advanced” workshop, the women attendees were expected to know the basics of using their camera without our help. We then paired them up and assigned them to a local Stinson resident. They were given two hours to try walking through the interview process that Rick shared, and then shoot the image that represents who this person is. Not an easy task, but the women were brave and went for it. Some went to the resident’s homes, others met them at a specific location that the model had requested, and others discovered a place for their shoot with the model together. All kinds of magic happened in that next two hours.

Want to see the attendee’s results? Coming soon! I’m working on that post now. It’s going to be a good one!

That night, when everyone had returned from their photo shoots, we stoked the fire up and had the most AMAZING dinner. (Thank you Leslie! It was AWESOME!)

The dinner was a perfect ending to a rich, full day. Lots of conversation by candlelight.

And when the moon started to rise, a bunch of us walked down to Stinson Beach (rain or no rain!). Being on that foggy beach with these incredible women made me want to run, leap, spin and laugh.

Thanks ladies for joining me! It was so much more fun running and leaping with all of you by my side! (And Sharon, thank you for catching such a memorable moment. love you, Me Ra)

Do foggy beaches at night make you want to run too?