A plea for conference organisers to host photography workshops

Talking with Dan on this week’s Unfinished Business got me thinking about photography and workshops and wanting to learn to make better photographs.

I love photography. It’s what I wanted to do after I left art school, the industry was a major part of my working life and it’s been something I’ve consistently enjoyed doing as an enthusiastic amateur, recently spurred on by Instagram. It’s also something that I know I could be much better at.

I have a whole list of things I’d like to learn about. Composition would be a great place to start, especially for landscape and architectural photography. Seeing Rick Nunn’s work makes me want to learn about flash, especially outdoors as it’s been years since I used studio lighting. On the software side of things, I’d like to know more about post-processing.

Workshops around conferences seem to be either all code or all coffee grinding. I know that some have extra-curricula photo walks and the occasional photography event, but I’d love to see conferences hosting more, in-depth photography workshops. In fact I’d pay good money for them and I think lots of other people would do too.

Update: Personally, I’d be happy paying £350 for a day, more if the group was smaller and there was more hands-on time. That could be a good source of revenue for the conference and for the person teaching. It might even draw attendees to a conference they might have previously thought twice about. It would provide real added value.

If you’re organising an event this year, please consider asking some of the extremelytalentedphotographersweknow to teach.