Roots Workshop blog

As originally posted on Rob’s blog:

I am forever learning – I’m a complete nerd when it comes to photography – I soak up everything photo related and try to put it out simply to my fellow photographers on my Twitter stream. When it comes to new tricks such as the most efficient way to control your aperture and shutter at the same time, I’m the man. Nobody knows where it get it from, but they appreciate the geekdom I know my gear back to front, I can light pretty much anything, but when it came to trying to find a unique story in every wedding or a family portrait session I was honestly starting to become unstuck.

Earlier in the year my friend Shyla was featured in a video review of the Roots Workshop (yes that’s me in both shots) – a weeklong boot camp introduction in photojournalism to get a grasp of visual storytelling. Run by Emilie Sommer a professional photojournalist and wedding photographer extraordinaire from Portland, ME, the workshop gathers together an impressive talent pool of her PJ friends: Greg Gibson, Tyler Wirken, Rachel LaCour Niesen, Mark Adams and Jennifer Domenick (and not forgetting J Sandifer as head chef and Mr Eric Laurits as the resident workshop storyteller). Add just a handful of students to the mix and what you get is a rather impressive tutor/student ratio! I called Shyla and it didn’t take long for her to convince me to go.

The concept is this:
- Throw all of us together under the same roof of a lovely Cape Cod house for a week.
- Provide us with amazing food so we can just concentrate on the task at hand.
- Give us a thorough grounding in story telling and beat out the preconceived notions of what photojournalism really is.
- Assess our strengths and weaknesses and then give us a gruelling two day assignment that really, really tests us.
- Try to find a story and a way of telling it through beautiful images.
- Have your mentors come out, follow you around and kick your butt! Love it!
- Enjoy jumping off the dock after a tough day.
- At the end of each day sit us down in front of everyone, then image by image, dissect exactly what and why we were trying to do.
- Send us back out on a second day with a clearer sense of where we were going.
- At the end of it all relish the lobster bake and present your story to the whole house.

Well I think I made it sound incredibly easy, but as Emilie puts it: “it is most certainly not a fluff workshop. Students will work hard and be critiqued hard”. Yup, hard it was! Not being one that was ever good at easy, I relished the whole week.

My assignment was at a YMCA camp on the Cape with kids hanging literally from my cameras. Not having ‘camp’ back in England, the concept wasn’t entirely new to me but I didn’t really know what to expect. When I got there on the first day I walked up over the brow of a hill to a sea of colour and the immense noise of hundreds of kids and their camp counsellors. Then it hit me: how was I going to find a story in that? Then something else hit me: that was exactly why they sent me here! Not being able to carry any more gear than two cameras and a spare battery, the only thing I could concentrate on was the story.

Jennifer, Mark and Tyler provided critical feedback while I was either drenched from a full day of rain or knee deep in water trying to get action shots of the kids swimming in the lake. I came back from the first day feeling rather deflated, but after the first critique night with Tyler and Mark providing some pretty humorous ways of making me rethink my actions (complete with legendary quotes), I went forth into day two feeling energised and more purposeful. Taking all of the advice on board I was able to develop a simple story that showed the emotions of the kids and the counsellors, as both were as important as each other. At the end of it all I came away with a cohesive set of images that I delivered to everyone on the last evening.

I learned a huge amount, gained a much better sense of visual story telling and came away with a great bunch of new friends. Roots was the best workshop I have attended – the hardest work, but certainly the most ground covered in advancing my skills.

Every time I now shoot I’m constantly drawing on everything I learned – it helped me to see differently and find the story when one is not always obviously there.

All I can say is this: if you are in the business of telling stories through images, this workshop is an absolute must. Call Emilie now and book your spot for 2010 – I’m not kidding – this workshop will change the way that you think and shoot. Without reservation it is easily worth the money and the week away from your business. Listen to what we have to say peeps!