Penny De Los Santos LIVE | My dream come true photography workshop

I consider myself a baby in this blogging and food photography world. Well, a baby I am, of 7 months.

And then it happened, as part of the learning curve – blog hopping, exploring great blogs, their photography portfolios as well as hunting for photography workshops locally, only the last part never materialized.

Not so long ago, while I was at it, I discovered Penny de Los Santos in an advance google search. Her workshop was not far away from where I lived, only too far away to afford. So I sigh’ed and cajoled myself that I was way too much of an amateur yet, to be asking for a workshop from a photographer of her caliber. And, I even erased it conveniently from my short-term and long-term memory. Many months passed.

Fast forward to four days back.

Suddenly there was this hullabaloo on twitter, thankfully I had jumped on to this bandwagon a few months back and need I say how addictive it is? And tweets on this “too good to be true” online photography workshop were all over my tweetbox (aka twitter inbox). Lo! and behold, who else other than Penny de Los Santos herself in flesh and person, except on the lcd screen. And the icing on the cake (I hate icing, but let’s stick to it metaphorically) – absolutely FREE!

Neither in the wildest of my dreams nor in my daydreaming had I anticipated this day to come and, so soon. I pinched myself, jumped up and down, walked hither thither across my little apartment. There was no way to contain my excitement. So, I went and trumpeted this new-found news to all I could, on twitterverse.

Fast forward to today, 13th of May.

Never must have I waited for the clock to hit 12:00 noon. Never must have I calculated and recalculated the time zone difference between PST and CST. Well, today it was.

And it was a dream come true – my rendezvous (online) with Penny de Los Santos – Passion, Principle, Integrity, Simplicity, Humility and Humor all packed in one. I sav(eu)ored each moment of today, the first day, didn’t move an inch from my laptop and left my 3-year-old to my mom-in-law (so thankful for her).

I am so excited for her photo shoot on day 2 and 3, I can’t seem to sit still, that is why I guess I am typing.

And while I edit this post, I am reminded of only one quote from The Alchemist ~ ”When you want something (from the bottom of your heart), all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”

Enough of my rants. To sum up today’s session, here are her quotes aka pearls of wisdom in chronological order:

Writers paint their story with words, that’s where I see the photographs
You have to be motivated, that’s the key to a successful photographer
Practice, Practice, make a lot of mistakes
Don’t emulate a picture, study it
I’m behind the camera, my fun is in the field
Pick your subject well, make your food look food and look for where the best light is
To me, food is most appetizing when it is seen in its natural essence
Natural light, done (re: lighting)
Messy is the new black (when it comes to food pictures)
There is a serious difference between making photographs and taking photograph
If you can get an editor to look at your photographs, just take the chance, it is revolutionizing
That’s what a great editor does, they put a fire under your butt
You can’t just make pretty pictures, you have to go beyond that
Great photography is about light, color, composition – and being true to yourself
Facebook is for the people you know, twitter is for the people you want to know
Practice seeing, I’m always looking for the visuals, I’d never put down the camera
I can walk the walk and talk the talk, but if I don’t have the photographs, it doesn’t matter
I want to take assignments that feed my soul, not just pay well
You have to self-assign your dream assignment
Don’t let them (publishers) buy the coffee, always buy them the coffee, always
I never sell the rights to my images; only the usage
Blogging is generational, a lot of editors think blogging is awful, it is ok to think that way

By now, I am sure you are excited as much or more than I am. So what are you waiting for?

Catch her LIVE tomorrow and day after at creativelive.com

On twitter @pennydelossantos #pennyLIVE

To just tell you how excited a photon I am, I never write blog posts at the spur of the moment and here I am!

To you Penny…