'Understanding Exposure' author is coming to town!

Bryan Peterson posing for his students at his Chicago 2007 workshop

The incredible Bryan F. Peterson, photographer and teacher extraordinaire and author of popular photography books such as Understanding Exposure, Beyond Portraiture and the new Understanding Shutter Speed, will be again bringing his hands-on workshop to Chicago in June of 2009.  The first time he conducted his workshop in our fair city was in late spring/early summer of last year but we missed him this year.

Accordiing to his bio, Bryan has been a photographer for over 30 years and also has been teaching photography for 20 years. He brings a unique teaching style to students which will guarantee creative and fun learning by all student photographers while elevating them to new, exciting photographic heights that they have only dreamed of.

Indeed he delivers all that.  I've been fortunate enough to study under Bryan, first when he was still at Better Photo, then in his own Perfect Picture School of Photography and then in his workshop.  And I could say, what I know most about photography, I learned from him.  He has the uncanny ability to deconstruct and teach photography in simple and understandable and yet very creative way.

I had an incredible time in his classes, and especially in his workshop which was conducted in a span of two days.  He first met with the attendees in a bar the day before the workshop started, so right away I knew that this was going to be lots of fun.  The next day, we started very early, just before sunrise - at Millennium Park then a stroll around the loop.   At about ten o'clock, we stopped, found a quiet place to converge and to download our photos and then had a session on post-processing in Photoshop®.  Then we had free time for lunch.  At about 3 pm we went out again to shoot until the evening, ending in the breakwaters near the Planetarium.  The next day was the same schedule - apparently, this schedule is a true a tested formula in all his workshops -  but we went to the North Ave. Beach, then around Lincoln Park, and then back to Millennium Park and Michigan Ave. in the evening.  We also went up some high rise in River East to take aerial shots.

The emphasis on the workishop was on the art of seeing - especially of seeing outside the box, and also on some 'difficult exposure and compositional fundamentals' as he stated.  Since the workshop was not much publicized, there were only three attendees, so the instruction was very personal and free-wheeling which really unleashed a lot of creativity among the participants

Here are some examples of photographs that I took during the workshop and the lessons learned upon taking the photographs:

Bryan graciously voluntered as our subject in a shoot that used the famous Cloud Gate as a background (instead of the main subject).

Boats on Monroe Harbor.  He basically taught us how to do the sandwich technique here by taking multiple pictures and stacking them together in Photoshop®; in my case, how to use the multiple exposure function of my NIkon D200.

Rust is in!  In this case, he asked us to find beauty up close in the most mundane objects around the loop.  This is a macro shot of a manhole cover that I saw on Wabash Ave.

Another Rust is in! shot, this time of a fire hydrant on Wabash

Reflection on water, flipped!  Crown Fountain, Millenniium Park

Swirling pinks - flowers at Millennium Park taken while rotating the lens

Bryan and fellow participants waiting for the magic hour at the breakwaters near the Adler Planetarium

Our last photo shoot was of the lights of Michigan Ave.

I really had a wonderful time in Bryan's workshop and would not hesitate to  participate again when he comes here in June (June 6-7, 2009).  Or I could catch his workshops next year in other places/cities too:  Miami, Tampa, New York, Oregon Coast, San Diego, San Francisco, Provence, Vancouver, Seattle and Singapore.