Workshop with Mike Larson

Last Saturday I took part in a 6-hour workshop with the renowned wedding photographer Mike Larson from the USA. The common thread of the workshop was building a business as a photographer. His tips were also interesting for amateur photographers, because it was basically about getting better, becoming better known, and getting more orders.

In times when digital cameras no longer cost a fortune and everyone who owns one believes they can take photographs, and a surprisingly large proportion of them are true, it is becoming more and more important to highlight their personal skills as a photographer. Ideally, of course, these should be based on photographic skills - but not only. Mike Larson says to sell yourself, not the product. Because – see the penultimate sentence – the product photography is available to many people, but you are unique.

Of course, selling yourself is not meant in the Faustian sense, but rather in terms of always looking for the best picture, getting the best out of it for your customer and contributing yourself in the best possible way. This also includes virtues such as reliability, sensitivity and friendliness.

But the most important thing is to master photography. Since this also requires a lot of practice, it is important to take a lot of photos. Mike Larson has now reached around 400000 shots per year. In order to process this amount of images, it is particularly important that post-processing takes as little time as possible. So Mike Larson's important tip is: "Do it right from the start!" He works a lot with fixed focal lengths because they often have better image quality and allow for larger apertures. This makes it easier to isolate individuals in a crowd. His zoom is his feet 🙂

Another important aspect of “people photography” is that it is about capturing emotions photographically – but also “generating” these emotions in the viewer later. It is therefore good if pictures can tell stories. These do not necessarily have to be recognizable to everyone, but this is an absolute requirement for the client. They will only like the pictures if they recognize themselves in them. And if they like the pictures, they will be proud to show them to other people and they will want to get similar pictures – and word of mouth is simply important if you want to become a sought-after photographer.

Mike Larson then gave us further tips for better networking, to get more opportunities for photography or to get new ideas or to experience different ways of working or to get to know new subject areas.

He also gave book and program tips, which are often not applicable or only applicable to a limited extent on the German market.

By the way, the workshop was sponsored by California Sunbounce, which is why Mike Larson showed us how great these products are - but I already knew that 😉