01.05.09 / Inspiration, Personal / Author: magdalena / Comments: (0)
I have a National Geographic workshop/seminar with Lee Hopkins and Bob Krist (hollar!). Even though I am not a travel photographer and only dream of being one, I still enjoy hearing photographers speak about their work and meeting them in person. No matter what type of photographer you are in, inspiration should come from every angle.
If that wasn’t good enough, I am going to hear The Dalai Lama speak at the Beacon Theater on Monday. I’m pretty much speechless and can’t believe that I will see him in person.
When I created my 101 things to do before I die in 2001, number 68 has always been meeting The Dalai Lama and I always thought I had a better chance in winning the lotto then ever being in the same room as him. Well what ya know!? I guess I should play the lotto more often.
If you’re gonna dream, dream big!
16.01.09 / Inspiration / Author: magdalena / Comments: (0)
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.
by Melody Beattie
12.01.09 / Inspiration, photography / Author: magdalena / Comments: (0)
Yesterday I attended a Photography workshop with Rick Sammon at B&H and I’m blown away with all the great stuff he spoke about. In my last blog I wrote about making pictures, not just taking them, and I was pretty sure I heard that somewhere before, well, it was from one of Rick Sammon’s books since he spoke about this quite a bit in the workshop. I have several of his books and I was shocked to hear that he has written over 30 books already! Amazing! He even has a collection of children’s books, which is my dream to one day publish a book for children (I already have a pretty good idea what this book is about).
I have been in search of new ways to see the light while taking pictures and Rick Sammon’s workshop was exactly what I needed. Most of the things that was mentioned, some of us already know, but we don’t execute. He said, “Always look up, down, back when taking a picture” of course I know that, but I never really do that when my eye is looking through the viewfinder. Another thing I need to keep in mind is to always expose for the highlights. When he said this, I automatically though, of course! I knew that! But I really didn’t. It’s so important to attend these workshops because photographers, like Rick Sammon, provide inspiration and reminders to look up, down and back every time you are out shooting.
Another very important thing I walked away with was “Think about the end result.” When I photograph I put myself in the moment and forget about everything else, including the end results. I need to focus more about why am I even taking this photo right now and what is my plan with it.
I am looking forward to my next workshop with Jay Maisel!
Here is a link to two places you can find Photography workshops:
Adorama workshops
B&H workshops
04.12.08 / Inspiration, photography / Author: magdalena / Comments: (5)
Steve Mc Curry is one of the most recognized photojournalist in the world. He’s mainly known for photographing the afghan refugee named Sharbat Gula, the girl with the bright green eyes. Steve has covered many international conflicts and has been in some interesting predicaments, including a plane crash. He is a huge inspiration.
I visit Steve Mc Curry’s website pretty often but never noticed the workshop portion until sometime last year and was shocked to see that he does workshops in NYC. I quickly signed up and started counting down the days until May 2008. I was pretty nervous because I’m not a photojournalist (but must have been in my past lifetime) and was worried that the rest of the group attending this workshop would be professionals. That was definitely not the case! Most of the people were there for the same reason, we love his work and wanted to pick his brain.
This was a three day workshop and the first day we had an introduction and Steve spoke about his work as well as his amazing team. Second day we all went out and photographed downtown. We all had a chance to shoot one-on-one with Steve for about 30 minutes. My time was perfect, but of course my brain froze and couldn’t think of one question that I have had lined up! Didn’t matter, having the chance to shoot with Steve and even snap a shot of him was an honor. On the last day we went through all the photos and picked the best ones. Steve and his team critiqued our images and presented the best of the best on a big screen.
What an awesome experience!
EDIT: I am aware Steve’s last name should be together, but the amount of spam I get on this post, I had to seperate it. I may need to even mispell it if they dont stop.
13.11.08 / Inspiration, photography, travel / Author: magdalena / Comments: (0)
We all need to have people or things that inspire us to be able to do what we do. It gives us motivation and insight. I have that with many people in this world; many whom I have never met and several who I have.
My main inspiration is my father. He’s the reason I couldn’t wait to get a passport and a camera. He traveled for work and lived in some of the most unbelievable countries. The stories and photos he shared with me while he lived in Iraq, Spain and other European countries made me fall in love with traveling and photography I am so proud and excited every time I board a plane and have my camera bag near me.
I have never met Randy Pausch, but he is he sure is remarkable. Randy was a Computer Science professor who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was given 3 to 6 months of good health –in 2006! Two years later he’s still posting blogs. His lectures are about living your childhood dreams and how to live your life the best way possible. Truly a remarkable person! I recommend everyone picking up his book or watching the video. Unfortunately Randy lost his battle with cancer and died on July 2008.
A good inspiration is knowing that it’s humanly possible to do something, because after all… he or she have done it, why can’t you?
Keep shooting and keep getting inspired. It’s a wonderful world out there, keep capturing it with every click.