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last Oct 24, 2008 and for the first time in my life as a photography enthusiast, I have finally attended a workshop in photography. It was not just a simple activity but perhaps i can say that it was a superb day because the event was mentored by no other than the master himself “ROSS CAPILI”.

the event was organized by a group of photography “passionist” (as master Ross puts it) called CL8 from Dubai. The theme for this event was “Dubai Mirage: The Next Models PhotoWorkshop Batch 13″ with Ross Capili. Well, this was the 13th leg of series of workshops Master Ross have been doing. And as far as I know the 8th batch was conducted in Singapore, i watched the video in Utube.

have it not for Lito Fernandez, a friend at Sheikh Khalifa Hospital, I wouldn’t have had attended the workshop. and we could have made it together and enjoyed the day if his son haven’t had high fever and coughing badly the night before the event. well, i had to go on alone just to see through the day and make the most out of it.

i was really feeling a bit uneasy without a friend to go along with. knowing myself, a beginner at that in this field of DLSR, i was feeling insecure and curious at the same time. Ross Capili, wow, it must be a very high profile workshop.

as instructed, i left Lito’s house around 7am and walked down passport road in Abu Dhabi towards the Heritage Park. i had to be at the site at least before eight in the morning. Along the way i had to take out my camera and shoot some high rise building as i walked along. arriving at the park, i noticed that no one with a backpack, or camera, or any gadget for photography for that matter was around in the area. and so, i called up Mr. Joviece and asked him where the venue really was. the hell, i learned later that there are two Heritage Park in Abu Dhabi, one in Passport Road and another in Meena Road just in front of Capital Hotel.

grrrrrr…. i was really feeling more uneasy than ever because it was almost eight. i ran off to the other side of the road and waited for a taxi to bring me to Corniche Hospital because as i have been told, the park is just beside the hospital. and so i dropped myself off inside the compound of the hospital. i was looking for a way out to the park and i called Joviece again for direction. now i learned that i needed to go to Meena road towards the Capital Hotel and make my way from there to the park. whew!!!!! i was perspiring a lot as i ran towards the direction of Meena road and then towards Capital Hotel. shohada! it was quite a sprint reaching the intersection in front of the Capital Hotel and another going towards the park and inside it.

at last i made it! i was soaked in perspiration! there were perhaps 50 or more people around already as i made my registration. met some beginners from sheikh khalifa hospital, met the organizers and some other participants. the aura of the day was so light and everybody made everyone else welcomed, adding more to that is the jolly Master Ross himself. i guess you’ll never feel aloft in the presence of this one mighty figure in the field of photography. it was as if you have met him for a long time and had been with him so many times during his workshops.

we started off with a few tips on how to position our hands and legs when shooting. it is important to note that when shooting, you must position your legs and feet in such a way that you anchor yourself properly to the ground and firm enough not to be dislodged when someone just boxed you out from your position. another noteworthy is the proper way to hold your camera when shooting so that you will not twist your arms when you move around ..

he also shared some tips on how to tweak photos using photoshop. according to him, it is best to use RAW file when photographing events specially when you needed to edit the images later for post processing. why RAW? because when you edit files in RAW format, it is easier to manipulate exposures and tweak images even when the pictures are underexposed, the quality of the images do not change when you are editing a RAW file.

Our first shoot was inside the same hut where master Ross gave his orientation and basic tips. Our model was Kristine or Cristine, as you like, with reflected light from a mirror which created great slashes of light thru her enhancing the subject which otherwise would have been just regular photos. It was exciting because it was indeed my first time to shoot with a model in front projecting moves and mood.

numbers were given and the participants were grouped into six, otherwise, everyone would have just jumped fronto and shoot as he/she liked and it would have been like a riot.  nonetheless, everyone have had the opportunity to shoot on the sidelines after his/her turn.

after shooting with Cristine, we then proceeded to a cavelike structure with EDZ as our model. At first instance I thought she was also a foreigner because she looked like one, but as soon as i heard her speak tagalog, i knew my thoughting was wrong (hehehe, where the hell did i get that “thoughting??? …. nah… tagalogized english yan!). Again this time we used the same mirror to reflect slashes of lights to the subject. we were instructed by master Ross to underexpose our shoots… what? well, indeed it was great underexposing because the lights made excellent highlights, something like a drama that draws attention to the subject. certainly, when you know how to make lights work for your subject, then perhaps i could say that you are well on the way to making great photographs. it is for this “light” that basically camera was made, picture is all about light and the amount of light that goes in the camera determines the outcome of the picture.

as soon as master Ross said shoot, wallah! everyone just fired and shoot and moved, like a game of airsoft or paintball … shoot, shoot!!!! we were too many participants clicking here and there and not long before we noticed we were already stepping on the plants and quite making a mess on the vegetation in front of the cave.

after the cave we went back to the hut again, took some snacks and water to quench our thirst. we rested for quite a bit and resumed our shoots again. this time we had Sally, a tall woman and i almost looked like a dwarf in front of her. this time were under direct sunlight and she was moving side to side under the shadow of the hut and out a bit to create a halfway slash of light thru her. this time, my CF card was almost full. i have only one memory card at 2gb and were shooting in RAW format. i did not bring my laptop because the LCD has broken down. good thing i have met Marvin, a nice and accommodating beginner like me, i was able to get and saved some of my shoots to my hard disk using his laptop. but transferring almost 2gb of file was a drag at 30 minutes and i missed a lot of shots already. great! this is the hustle of being a novice in photoshoots like this, but perhaps it was also a lesson learned, that when you are going for a workshop, you got to have at least 3 memory card of 1gb each, bring along your card reader and laptop and make sure you charged the battery well enough for longer use, and don’t forget the battery charger. why i said at least 3 memory card and a card reader, because when one of your memory is full, then you can upload the contents using the card reader and not your camera and you have a spare memory card to use while you are uploading the other to your laptop and you can format it as soon as you have uploaded the contents to leave it free for use for yet another round of shooting saga.

continuous lighting and low light in a studio was our last activity. we first took our lunch at Chowking, Abu Dhabi. this is particularly one of my difficulties because  shooting in low light conditions is very hard, most often than not, you’ll get a lot of blurry images specially if you are not fortunate enough to have a very expensive lens with f2.8 or lower. mine is only a kit lens of 18-70mm AF-S Nikkor 1:3.5-4.5 G ED. it is very difficult shooting in low light using this lens, or maybe, i am just too novice to know how to work it out to my advantage… well, i did fairly in my own respect.

sample images from the workshop
Model: EDZ

towards the end of the workshop, maestro Ross shared with us his routines in tweaking images using photoshop. i still am new to this software and somehow i am trying to get around it with all the menus and tools. for now i am just using the ones that i am quite familiar with. indeed the workshop with master ROSS CAPILI was excellent and needless to say that for the meager registration fee that we paid for, we all got the best there is for the kind of experience and knowledge we have acquired from it. truly it was a day that i will always cherish, learning from the Master is awesome!!!