Today I have been working FURIOUSLY to re-tool so much of what I do. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the fact I have two weddings this weekend, Ginny & Neal’s tomorrow, then Lindsy & Ben’s on Saturday, all immediately after a very much needed photography workshop.

I know many of you are curious about what I learned, and it would be impossible to sum it up on a blog. If you are serious about photography, go to one of their workshops and tell them that I told you to go. You will not regret it.

I personally understand what I need to do to get better and I think pretty much everyone there understood the message that Nate and Jaclyn wanted to give, and that would be, TO BE YOUR ORIGINAL SELF.

They showed us so much of what they did, and for my own sanity Im glad because I feel like I understand some of it but for anyone to copy EXACTLY what they do would mean they didn’t get the bigger message of being yourself. Does that make sense?

What my intention now is…. to take the best things I learned from and to fuse them with my own approach, style and techniques.

Every photographer is a small part of every image they have seen and everything they have learned. If you put great stuff into your mind, you will be able to synthesize new and great things if you make a conscious effort to…..its not about copying someone else, its about borrowing what they do well, and implementing it with your own style.

Here is just one little example: Nate gave us a lesson on how to use Photoshop Textures to enhance your images. This is something I have haven’t toyed with much. It got me thinking, not “I should do that like he does” but rather, “what do I have that is unique, that I can fuse with what Nate showed me about textures?”

I felt impressed to see if I could use my Lollipop actions to enhance textures, rather than using the method Nate showed. To me this is a true synthesis. As soon as I got on the plane I started working with this idea.

I have posted the before and after images here. There is also a new Lollipop training video for those of you who have them and would like to see how this was done.

I am so excited!! This weekend will be like Christmas for me in so many ways!! 🙂You can watch the video here:

Using Michael Andrew Lollipops To Enhance Textures