I'll be honest with you: I was nervous.
For years I've taught photography the same way, from behind the camera, in our own studio, in a quiet and private environment where it's just us and the work. So standing up in a room full of people in Brisbane, about to run our very first proper workshop, was a completely different feeling. New room, new faces, and all eyes on me instead of the set.
What I didn't expect was how quickly that nervous energy turned into one of the most fun, rewarding experiences I've had in this business. Here's how the two days went.
Hosting in our own studio
We were lucky enough to run the whole thing in our own Brisbane studio, and that meant a lot to me. There's something about having photographers come in and actually experience the environment. Not a hired room, but the space we built and work in every day.
It wasn't always like this. I once shot out of a second bedroom, and at the time I genuinely thought moving into my garage was a massive upgrade. To now be welcoming people into my very own commercial studio space and teaching them in it? That's not lost on me for a second. If you're shooting out of a spare room right now, I've been exactly where you are, and that's kind of the point.
Day one: building the foundations
We started right at the beginning, because the fundamentals are where everything else hangs off. We covered general camera settings first, then moved into lighting, the part most people find intimidating and the part I love demystifying.
We worked through your lighting options and modifiers, how to use strobes, connecting and firing a trigger, and the different settings that change everything about a shot. From there we got into the things that actually make a photo tell a story: the elements on set, choosing your background colours, your props, and how every one of those decisions adds up to a final image with intention behind it.
Watching the light build, one strobe at a time
This is the part I think really landed. Rather than just talking theory, we shot. We worked through roughly six or seven different scenes so everyone could see exactly how we style and light a set the way we do it for clients.
I built the light up live, starting with a single strobe and adding all the way up to five, so you could see precisely what each light was doing and why. We swapped modifiers throughout to show how the same set can feel completely different depending on the tools you reach for. We shot both portrait and product, with a model on set and a hair and makeup artist styling throughout. We talked wardrobe, played with gels, and got creative with colour.
Getting hands-on
The bit everyone remembers is the bit where they actually pick up the camera. We made sure this wasn't a sit-and-watch day. Everyone got up and had a go themselves.
That included the fun, messy stuff: water shots, choosing background colours, and capturing splash photography. Watching people nail a splash shot they didn't think they could pull off is exactly why I wanted to do this in the first place.
And you take the whole thing home
One thing I really wanted to get right: nobody should be frantically scribbling notes while they're trying to actually learn. So everyone walks away with a take-home booklet that has all of it: every lighting cheat, the lighting set-ups we ran on the day, gear lists, the lot.
It means you can be fully present in the room, soak everything in, and still have it all to refer back to whenever you need it later. It's one of the pieces of the workshop I'm proudest of, because it keeps being useful long after the two days are done.
The part I didn't see coming: the room itself
The thing that surprised me most wasn't the teaching. It was the networking. People who arrived as strangers spent two days creating alongside each other, swapping ideas, and building real connections. Watching that happen in the room was genuinely special, and it's something you can't get from a tutorial or an online course.
The feedback
The response meant a lot, especially for a first workshop. The thing people kept saying was that I wasn't a gatekeeper, that I shared everything openly and taught in a way that was easy and digestible, even with the technical stuff.
The most useful piece of feedback was that people wanted even more hands-on time. I took that to heart and built more of it straight into our Sydney workshop. That's the whole point of running these: getting better every time, with you.
What's next
The first one is done, the nerves are well and truly gone, and I'm hooked. If you've been thinking about levelling up your photography, whether you're a brand wanting to shoot in-house or a photographer wanting to sharpen your lighting, keep an eye out for our next dates.
Come and create with us. I promise not to gatekeep a thing!
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