See, I taught a workshop at my studio with my friend Sean Flanigan. We talked, we shot, we shared, we partied, we hugged, we did a great deal together with all the attendees. And as always when it comes to teaching, I walked away feeling I have learned a great deal about where *I* am and where I’m going. And I know I want to do this again.

It was absolutely exhausting, but now, four days later, I feel pumped again. Excited about where I am, the people I get to meet and work with and the year I have ahead of me.

A few words of thanks.

I could not have done this without Jacqui, who ran the show perfectly behind the scenes together with friends and family, allowing me to be my usual scatterbrained self. Sean for knocking it out of the ballpark over and over again. Dan and Samm, my dear friends, who added some amazing perspective as our guest speakers. Our four models who rocked the crap out of a swamp.

And of course the attendees.

People come to workshops to learn, to be fed knowledge. The thing is that they already have it inside them. All Sean and I did was lead the horse to water.

I hope you all walked away at least a little bit inspired, knowing you have the skills to take this thing you do to new heights.

I love you all.

Can we please do it again?

All these images were edited with nothing but VSCO FILM. Get your copy today, the special launch price ends Monday night (PST).

I was literally muttering like an old man when I installed the VSCO FILM presets. I opened up a random image and clicked on one of the presets.

Boom.

I opened up another one.

One click.

Boom.

This can’t be true, I told myself. With one click a set of Lightroom presets gave me the look I was after, without tweaking?

I tried a black and white preset.

Boom.

I get asked to endorse products all the time. I rarely – if ever – do it.

But I can honestly say that I love these Lightroom and ACR presets. I don’t care if they give you the look of film or not, I care about the end result.

And I love it.

With saying that, I also love shooting real film, but it’s nice to have something great for digital raw files.

These images were all edited with the VSCO FILM presets.

One click.

Boom.

Order your copy here.

Material Connection Disclosure

We immediately realised we had a golden opportunity to put together a kickass workshop.

So that’s what we’re doing.

We meet Tuesday 22 November for welcome drinks followed by two packed days of talking, teaching and shooting before we finish up with a nice dinner together on Thursday 24 November.

The number is limited to 25 people and there has been a lot of interest, so get in quick if you’re interested in this one off workshop.

You can find more information and sign up here. The workshop is now FULL.

There will also be two amazing guest speakers at the workshop.

If you have any questions, ask them here or send them directly to mail [at] jonaspeterson.com

NOTE: The sign-up page says Monday to Wednesday, but it is Tuesday 22 – Thursday 24 November, nothing else.

What an empty, yet loaded, word.

Photographers ask me all the time who inspires me. I think they secretly want to know which other wedding photographers are my favourites.

I like this Jonas Peterson guy, they think, so whoever he likes must be the key to who I want to be.

Instead of searching within, they look outside to try to find out who they are. Instead of taking a long and hard look in the mirror they try to find “inspiration” elsewhere.

It won’t work.

I look at art, photography, movies, theatre, you name it all the time, but when push comes to shove it all comes down to who I am, what I want to do and how I see things around me.

I’m inspired by people.

And by the things they do.

So when I signed up for my first workshop ever, I did it partly because I wanted to know more about shooting film, but I knew I’d get more out of just hanging out with Jonathan, who was hosting it.

I get a lot of people contacting me about my work. I look through my emails and I feel happy, but also embarrassed. I’m a very simple guy. I love what I do and I want my clients to share my vision. But the level of attention I’m getting still baffles me.

Attending the Film Is Not Dead workshop in Melbourne made me look at what I do in a different light, but it also made me love the man behind the workshop. I learned things about film, exposure and latitude, but more than anything it re-enforced the fact that wedding photography doesn’t have to be about hustling and selling shit to people.

Love people and they will love you back.

Jonathan does.

And for that I will always love him.

If you’re interested in people, film and meeting a man on a mission, I couldn’t recommend Film Is Not Dead more.

It will probably change your life.

But boy did I try.

If you’ve got the skills you can copy anything, make it sound almost like the original as long as you don’t push it too far.

So I did.

It took me years to be comfortable with the sound of my voice. It didn’t sound at all like Bono’s, but if I covered it up, I could make it sound almost similar.

Then one day I picked up my guitar and started singing some lyrics I had written the night before. I tried my faux Bono, but it felt wrong. After a while I started singing with my own voice and all of a sudden everything fell in place. All the nuances I had missed trying to sound like mr Paul David Hewson finally bubbled up to the surface. I was using my voice the way it was meant to be used and all of a sudden I had a whole new range to play with. My voice was different, but it was my voice and it was more honest than anything I had ever tried to copy.

I had found my voice.

So why am I telling you this?

Well, I’m sitting here in a hotel room in Madrid. I’m on a whirlwind tour around the world and I get questions all the time about how I edit my images or why I compose images the way I do. People want to get under my skin and even though I find it absolutely ludicrous, I do understand the urge to sound like someone else.

But do you know what?

It’s absolutely ok to do so, but it’s not until you start trusting your own voice you’ll reach your full potential.

It’s as simple as that.

Don’t be a copy, you’ll end up being  a Jasmine Star Light, a [p]ecker or Shit Sean Flanigan.

Be you.

I’d read tutorials online on how to do it and I knew roughly how to pull it off.

I also knew I wanted some sort of film poster look to it. A bit gritty, but still a simple setup. I didn’t need the hassle of working some kind of idea into a shot I’d never even tried shooting before. The post processing in photoshop took less than 30 minutes and I think the end result looks pretty good for a club act. If you know PS, all I’ve done is use layer masks and then some cloning to clean up around the place. The cross processing is Nik Color Efex Pro. It’s not what I’d normally shoot, or even how I’d edit it, but there’s nothing like stepping out of your comfort zone to keep you on your toes.

I’ve put together a small making of, just to show you it’s not that hard to do.

As an experiment it was quite fun.

This is the gear I used.

Canon 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24mm 1.4L
2 Pocket Wizards
Canon 580 EX II  (bare flash)

The flash was on a monopod which Jacqui held at different angles, the camera was on a tripod. The final shot is a composite of three shots where the artist and back-ups were lit by a single bare flash in each one. If you have any questions, shoot away. I’m no Zack Arias, but it was fun to see I could actually do it. I hardly edit my wedding images at all, so this was something completely new. It was nice to get out and shoot using ideas and equipment I know little about. I don’t think I’ll use much of this for my wedding work, but now I know off camera flash is nothing to be too scared of.

I know this shot could have been shot better, but still.

If I can do this, you can.

You can view the final shot large here.