Scouting Photography Workshop Locations on the Canary Island of Lanzarote

Each year I try to find new places to hold a photography workshop – one that rivals the vast visual diversity of the Lake Powell landscape. While I can often find places that are compelling and unique to photograph, usually they are spread out over a very large area – making it challenging to get any significant teaching and work done – if you are spending too much time traveling between locations. That’s one of the things I like so much about Lake Powell: It’s unique and compelling, yet once we arrive at our central base camp on the lake for our October workshops – everything can be accessed with a short boat ride and a hike.

My search for new locations took me this December to the volcanic canary island of Lanzarote, off the coast of west africa. My favorite thing about the island – in addition to it’s underground caves, volcanos, and sweeping panoramic views of a beautiful island – was it’s uniquely black beaches, which contrast really well against the tones of the human form and of the ocean waves. Here are a few of the images of what we found.

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How to find and work with top fine art models

Each year, our Dynamic Nude Workshops fill up quickly – and this is for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the caliber of fine art nude models that we bring on each trip. If you’ve spent enough time working as a photographer with models – you know how challenging it can be to find an individual that has creative passion, poses naturally in front of a camera, and is so photogenic – it’s hard to take a bad photo of them.

These are the kinds of models we spend months looking for each year – so that we can provide our workshop attendees with muses and creative collaborators that will exceed their expectations.

In the past few years, we’ve found a community online that makes it MUCH easier to find talented models – and I wanted to share that with you in case you also spend a fair amount of time looking for individuals to photograph.

Model Society is a community of some of the best contemporary artists on the planet – not just models, but photographers as well. If you aren’t familiar with it, and you look for models to collaborate with on a regular basis – I highly recommend it, as the people there are all professionals (no need to spend hours wading through endless lists of people that don’t fit what you are looking for).

To give you some idea of the caliber of people – here are a few of the Model Society Models that will be joining us this fall:

Anastasia

Anastasia by Craig BlacklockShauntia

Shaun Tia by JMAC

Mila

Mila by Edward Holland

Sekaa

Sekaa by Andrew Kaiser

And if you would like to opportunity to work one on one with FIVE top art nude models like these – we invite you to come and experience a photographic adventure that will not only advance your photography to a whole new level – but will be one of the most productive and awe-inspiring experiences of your lifetime. We hope to see you at the lake: http://www.dynamicphotoworkshops.com/the-dynamic-nude

Genius Editing Tutorial in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw)

Hot off the press: Craig Blacklock provides a genius tutorial on how to edit an image in Adobe Camera Raw. If you are not using this technique (which is non-destructive, adds almost no size/weight to the file, and has phenomenal capabilities) – you should be after watching this.

This method has completely changed the way I edit an image (it’s the only method I use now). Keep in mind you need at least version 6 of Photoshop/Camera Raw to use the features listed. Enjoy!

If you would like to learn from Craig Blacklock in person, join us on our upcoming Dynamic Nude Workshop at Lake Powell, Utah. This only scratches the surface of the advanced techniques we cover, plus you’ll get to work in some of the most beautiful locations on earth (photographing some of the most beautiful people on earth): http://www.dynamicphotoworkshops.com/the-dynamic-nude

Photographs from Week 3 of The Dynamic Nude Workshop at Lake Powell, Utah

Our third and final week of The Dynamic Nude workshop was nothing short of spectacular. We had attendees from all over the United States, Spain, Sweden, Canada and The Netherlands!

We had a week of exciting adventures, more stunning models, and absolutely perfect weather. Looking forward to seeing this family of friends next year for another trip through this magical desert landscape. !!

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