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 Travel with our mentors and try out all of the latest equipment from Nikon! Including world class digital SLRs, Nikkor lenses and the Coolpix line of Digital Cameras.
Friday night was the rodeo. The Double JJ Ranch built a platform that allowed us a great top down view of the entire event. Bulls throwing off their riders, broncos bucking, clowns running, horses racing -- you name it, we shot it. After about 2 hours of shooting at the rodeo, some of us headed off to the wagon wheel for some mechanical bull riding. Many of us trekkers took on the metal beast. Saturday was our longest day! 7am-1am. After a session on flash photography we headed off to photograph cows being herded in the pastures. After awhile it almost looked like they were herding trekkers. An outdoor steak dinner was served, then we headed off to capture about 70 Double JJ horses running through a meadow at sunset. Before the sun was completely out, we hurried onto Carpenter lake, where 6 Double JJ wranglers rode their horses around the edges of the lake allowing us to photograph the riders in action. At 9:30pm we headed back to the main barn for some lessons in light painting. Dave Black showed us how to paint a photograph by leaving your camera shutter open in complete darkness, and then using light from a flashlight to expose just the areas you want to appear in the photo. Everyone was hooked, and many of us stayed out until 1 a.m. Anyone who could wake up the next morning hit the water park for some action shots. Overall the Double JJ Ranch was a great experience and can't wait to go on another trek. Leticia (Tish) Caparaz RECAP Hold on to your saddles because this was a trip that sent me flying! I had never been on a photography workshop but this trip to a Ranch was just right for me. I'm a horse lover and wanted to learn some new skills and also have the experience of being on a ranch. The mentor series did not disappoint…. The mentors, or teachers were Dave Black & Lori Stall. And, although I wasn't very familiar with their work prior to this they were both very helpful during the critiques. The Q& A sessions and their initial introductions also helped me get to know their work and their insights into photography. Right after the introductions we got right into the thick of it, photographing cowboys and cowgirls in as many photo variations as possible. My favorite was the running horse, were I practiced my panning. The cowgirl with a lasso also made a great portrait. After that, the ranchers prepared a BBQ Pig Roast that left all our mouths watering. This was the real deal with all the fixings, it couldn't get any better! After we had all filled our bellies we set out to the rodeo. The photo opportunities were endless. I found it challenging to get a focused picture but realized that the blur was unavoidable and helped to show movement. The following day, we had a great breakfast buffet to start us off then we set out for the cattle drive shoot. This was a great opportunity for me, nothing that I could have done on my own. The Photoshop class by Dave Black afterwards was also very great. I'm intimidated by all the possibilities of Photoshop but Dave explained it very clearly and I found it very helpful. Later that afternoon, we got to practice flash photography with beautiful models. My portraits had never looked like that, the flash made huge dramatic difference lighting up their eyes. The finale for our day in photography was unbelievable to start off we had horse runs through the meadow and across the lake. The sunset was a perfect backdrop to silhouette the cowboys. Also, the shots with the water splashing up as the horses ran through were beautiful. They left the best till the end though. After having seen Dave Black's work with light painting I was excited at the chance to practice the technique. We couldn't have asked for a better setting than the ranch; there were so many possible things to light paint there. We all had a chance to light paint, besides the fun it was we left with amazing images. The final show was a tribute to our mentors and the JJ Ranch for all they had done to create great photo opportunities. I enjoyed watching all the other attendees images but mostly I was happy with all I'd learned and the horse and cowboy photographs I'd taken on this trip. |
Friday morning we all met our wonderful mentors -- Dave Black (an awesome sports photographer and light painter -- more on this later) and Lori Stoll (beautiful portraits of celebs and awesome album covers -- "Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'em", anyone?). Barely settled in, we headed off to our first location, the main barn. Many of the Double JJ Ranch staff, including Big [Cast, Michelle] K and ranch co-owner Wally, came dressed in full regalia -- cowboy hats, chaps, boots, and spurs. While Dave was teaching in the barn about silhouetting and convincing the trekkers to shoot with the flash "off the camera," Lori instructed on portrait photography with Wally posing on a horse.
