Have you wanted to work with talent and build a portfolio? Have you struggled to build relationships with agencies? Can't seem to create shots with talent you're happy with? Struggle with lighting? Want to know how to direct talent and how to produce a shoot? This is a workshop about building out your portfolio for yourself as well as for the talent you work with.

In this workshop, Laz Smith and OfOliver, aka Oliver Minnett, will teach a day-long class on mastering test shoots and building out your portfolio.

We'll start by talking about preproduction, which includes building briefs, the considerations for what you need to include, and how to create a realistic brief that you can execute. We'll also discuss the etiquette for reaching out to agencies and talent and building relationships that allow you to grow your portfolio.

We'll then move on to lighting setups and the tools used to create them, breaking down how to reproduce the shots in the brief, as we'll have illustrative examples of what we want to create, and then we'll talk about how they can be executed. We will use both strobe and natural light to demonstrate! The systems for demonstration will be done using the Fujifilm GFX system and Profoto lighting to teach*.

We will teach problem-solving skills to ensure that flash photography is easy and simple and cover the basics of using natural light to create elevated shots.

Finally, we will debrief and discuss post-production workflows to ensure consistent and elevated editing and colour. The software we will use will be Capture One, Adobe Lightroom, and Photoshop. Oliver and Laz's editing processes are quite different, so they will cover different ways of managing your post-production workflow.

*The gear we use is not required to complete this workshop. You will be taught so that you can apply the skills we discuss using other camera and lighting setups.