Emily Soto
After waiting and waiting, finally the time has come. It was the first workshop in my photography experience. As I will be organizing the workshop soon on Jan 2013 on Michael Greenberg, this workshop will be my great experience in learning the way TechGarage organizing the workshop as well as learning the photographing and photo editing skill at the same time. All the way down to KL and meeting SiewKay before heading to the workshop together. Thanks to SiewKay and Kimi for the hospitality in KL, engrave a lot of great time in my memory, Tao buffet, Lot 10 Steamboat buffet…. Now it is time for me to roll back Penang :D
Picture taken by Victor Soto
Emily Soto was first introduce by SiewKay when I was telling her that I am trying to get into Fashion photography and merging Fashion together with bridal. And Emily’s work gives me the wow surprise! From that onward I had been following her works from her blog up to the latest work today. When Siewkay told me that she is coming to Malaysia and she has a workshop in KL, without much consideration I had booked my ticket for her workshop. Her work is purely on portraits and fashion, it is a different approach from wedding where by a lot of rules does not apply such as rule of 3rd, story line and so on…. In art, there is no boundary limit; you can break the rules, as long as your masterpiece is beautiful.
We can see that she loves to use 85mm f1.2L lens for her shooting. She almost did all her shooting for the workshop with her 85mm lens. It was my first time experience to shoot at such a wide aperture on full body. And there are more to learn in the workshop. Emily Soto came with her husband, Victor Soto he is a graphic designer and a lighting assistant whenever Emily Soto did her shooting. And the workshop was help up by a very talented fashion photographer from Singapore name Richard Chen. Richard was very helpful and willingness to share his experience with us. Although he has a different way of approach in his photography career, but its great to share something new to us and Emily Soto was learning together as well. I really love the star effect that he thought us during the workshop. This is something that is additional. Humble Victor always said he does not know how to shoot, but he actually did a great job to do the setting on my camera while demonstrating the window light shooting. I bet you will surprise with his photo.
Emily Soto show us all her secrets from shooting and also how she gone through on her hard time to become a fashion photographer. Hardly to see a photographer that is so kind, that can share everything to us. She shares out how she did her flare, her smoky effect and even her editing concept to us including her editing secret. Usually this is available in internet to pay for downloading. Over the workshop guidance on flash, rim light effect and also using the available light was great and Emily always walk around to check out our work. I was surprise that she was looking at my work from behind and suddenly she said awesome!
The workshop was organized under TechGarage by Rachel Tan. She did a very great job, all expect was well taken care. From little gift, name tags, sponsors, venue, diet to all the images copy rights. All the name tags were different from each other. Even Emily Soto was surprise by their arrangement. There are total of 27 participants and 6 of them are from Indonesia. I love this batch of participants because they are way much humble when they were attending the workshop. Without checking out their profile, you will never know who they are. You will be surprised by their artwork when you check out their profile. They are quiet, share out what they know and none of them is promoting their work or show off that they are professional photographer. One of them was hired by National Geographic to capture wild animal in the jungle. One of them is a fashion photographer where by her work is recognize international. Another one of them not even can speak good English, but he is in the fashion photography for years. One of the participants is a pet specialist; she is professional in shooting pet. An aging couple was there to learn, they did not done much talking, but they actually had been to a lot of workshop, seminars and conference and he is a General Manager of an engineering company. If you do not check his profile you wouldn't know he even shoot bikini portrait. I believe some of their artwork is better than Emily Soto but they still humble and eager to learn from people. Photographers out there those reading my blog, if you think that your photos are great, please look at them…. You have too many to learn from them.
Picture credit to Siewkay. Thanks :D
