Photography Workshop with Favery and Elli

This past weekend I attended the May Portland Blogger meet-up at the studios of Favery and Elli in the Pearl district. This month (and my first month attending a meet-up) was a photography workshop featuring some styled scenes and local photographers. I was overjoyed when I saw that Linnea of Linnea Paulina was going to be teaching a segment of the photo workshop. I am a huge fan of film photographers and always envious of their skill. After drooling over Linnea's work since moving to Portland I wasn't going to miss this workshop!

The workshop was held at such a beautiful space in downtown Portland and the decor was simply lovely. Flowers by Swoon Florals decorated all of the tables and pretty examples of Elli's stationary and wedding suites were worked into the styled displays. I am terrible at styling my own parties and food for photography, so the scene of pretty matched colors and vintage vases/cake stands was an amazing palette to work with while practicing taking photos in new ways. I had a lot of fun going fully manual with my camera and playing around with white balance, lighting (tried some chiaroscuro-style photos when the sun dimmed), and taking photos from new angles. Linnea, Aubrie LeGault, and Margaret Jacobsen were the photographers in attendance and they had amazing advice that spanned from how to maximize your light, how to work with your camera on full manual mode, and most importantly, how not to beat yourself up because your photography isn't "perfect" yet. They shared some of their stories of just starting out and reminded us that it's not necessarily about your equipment, but it is about the time you dedicate to practice and your willingness to experiment.

All in all the meet-up was a chance for me to get out of my normal - reclusively at home taking photos like I normally do - and get into a bustling environment where experimentation was rewarded (with great photos).