The similarities are endless….

For my sophomore year of college I studied abroad in France.  I was nervous about going, my time over there was challenging but rewarding, I met my best friend while living there, in the end I wasn’t sure about going home and, most importantly, it was an experience that influenced the rest of my life.

I didn’t know it – but going to Roots Workshop last week was exactly the same.

I was nervous about going, Matt actually contacted Emilie first and laid the groundwork for me to go.    The nerves kicked in when I got there as well.  I was surrounded by some REALLY talented photographers, leaders who had won Pulitzer Prizes and whose work I had admired and we were all going to live in the same house for a week!    But once the week started I was swept up in the awesomeness of the experience.

My time at Roots was challenging and rewarding.   I thought the workshop was simple – learn to take better pictures and tell a better story.  What I didn’t realize was that the workshop was about how to be a better photographer on all kinds of levels.  The most surprising part of the experience was how the physicality of my photography changed.  How I hold the camera, how I position my body, how I physically react to different situations has been changed.    How did that happen?  How did that come out of a workshop that is about taking pictures?  I blame the house.  When you live in the same house with 15 other photographers you can not help but learn and grow.  Seeing talented photographers in action, how they treat their gear, how they approach a topic, what they see when they look at the same scenario I do was INVALUABLE and not something you get in other workshops.

Don’t get me wrong – I definitely learned how to take better pictures and am forever indebted to Tyler, Jen and Mark for the patience they showed me.   They shared with me(and all of us) their passion, knowledge and patience.  And like any great teacher you had in Kindergarten I will still be gleaning wisdom from their teaching years from now.

I met lots of best friends while I was there.  All of the other brave souls who were willing to have their work critiqued ALOT I now count as close friends!

By Friday I wasn’t sure about going home.  I missed home, hadn’t slept in days,  missed Matt like crazy but I wasn’t sure about leaving.  When you experience something so personal and special you are afraid to pop the bubble.  I knew once I pulled out of the driveway what I had been surrounded by for a week would be gone – that my time at Roots ‘09 would be over and I wouldn’t be able to get it back.   I just didn’t want to leave but I had to.  I had to get to Hailey’s camp graduation and since permanently moving into the house with everyone wasn’t an option I followed the advice of some old British propaganda and told myself to “Keep Calm and Carry On”

I am hopeful by getting this far in my blog post that you know the experience changed my life.  I look at images differently now.  I don’t take pictures now  – I make pictures.  I look at my relationships with other photographers and people differently.  I understand my role better.  I know what it is like to be changed and influenced by great people and this was one of those times.

It seems crazy I have mentioned the assignment yet.  I think that is a testament to the workshop itself.  It wasn’t about what your assignment was although mine was full of awesomeness.  It was about something different, something I didn’t understand until I had experienced it.  Since Emilie said it so much better than I can, I will quote her directly:

“The assignments are simply an exercise to put the art of seeing into practice and, thus, become better visual storytellers.”

But so we are clear my assignment did ROCK!  I had Four Seas Ice Cream in Centerville, MA.  They are the third oldest ice cream shop in New England, which is significant and yet compared to how good their ice cream is they could be the third youngest ice cream shop in the country and it would still be a crazy hot spot for ice cream on the Cape!  I am not ashamed to say I ate a lot of ice cream, I ate it 3x a day for the 2 days I was shooting, I gained 2.5lbs last week and that was with RUNNING!  Can you imagine if I hadn’t run… I try not to.

The assignment had its pros (ice cream, happy kids) and its cons (small space, changing lighting conditions) but all the assignments did and if I had had my pick of assignments this would have been it.  I was so excited when Tyler gave it to me he thought he should take it back I just loved it that much.  Imagine my surprise at the end of day 1 when Tyler said “you don’t really have anything workable here”. How can that be when I love a place so much!!!   I will admit it was intimidating to hear that but I am thankful for his (and Jen and Mark’s) feedback, help and honesty.   I learned to so much and in the end I am super proud of my slideshow.  I am especially proud of this image that Tyler and I worked very hard for as night descended upon us the second day.

Our final night included a video presentation of everyone’s work. I love my slideshow but it wasn’t the best part.  The best part of the evening was having Tyler stand up there with me and knowing that Tyler, Jen and Mark were as proud of me, my growth and my slideshow as I was – that kind of moment is priceless.

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!

Roots Workshop student testimonials 2009 from emilie sommer on Vimeo.

A huge thanks to Roots Workshop photographer Eric Laurits and emilie inc. multimedia producer Morgan Kirkham for putting together this testimonial video from a few of this year’s student interviews.

And also, without further ado, please mark your calendars for September 15th at 9a, and pass the word that Roots ‘10 registration will be open to accept students for next summer! That’s right, Roots returns to the Cape July 18-23rd for our third year!! Visit the newly redesigned workshop website for more information and please email me with any questions! Can’t wait!