Weekend of July 23rd, 2010 – I was lucky to participate in a workshop led by Chris Marquardt of the “Tips from the Top Floor” podcast. First off, let me give props to Chris – he runs a really great workshop. He’s friendly, personable and very down to Earth. And that’s to say nothing about his photography and teaching skills, which are both excellent.
Quick synopsis – the workshop he led was entitled the “San Francisco Street Safari” and this was a three-day workshop on the streets of San Francisco. As anyone might know, street photography can be intimidating. It involves taking pictures of people you don’t know. That often involves talking to people you don’t know. Not for the feint of heart.
Chris breaks the group in slowly. Day one is classroom with two assignments. The first one, “take a picture. Take a picture that’s comfortable.”
Second assignment was a little more difficult, “take a picture of a person.”
On day two, we spent the whole day shooting on the streets of San Francisco. We had a bus to transport us. The grand tour started in the Mission District, we had lunch in Golden Gate park, toured Haight-Ashbury and ended up in North Beach and China Town.
Day three combined more classroom and street shooting in the Mission District. This day included some discussion of post-processing (check out the group shot) and everyone was thrilled to see Chris in action in Lightroom and Photoshop.
If you have the opportunity and the desire, and if Chris is in a geographically desirable location, you can’t go wrong taking one of his workshops. He really gives it his everything, as the following image will attest.
