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What do you do when you’re given the oppor­tu­nity to meet, and learn from, your pho­to­graphy idols? WHATEVER IT TAKES. So when I lear­ned that bobbi+mike, a hus­band and wife team of fabu­lous­ness from India­na­po­lis, whom I have blogs­tal­ked since almost the begin­ning of my MKP adven­tu­res (I have a mes­sage to her in Sept 08 telling her how much I admi­red her work, but that I swear I wasn’t a stal­ker) were hos­ting their first ever workshops, that’s what I did.

It’s no sec­ret that I fell into pho­to­graphy acci­den­tally. Until early 2006 I really had no idea I loved it — or that other peo­ple (aside from my ever loving mother (hi mom!)) had any appre­cia­tion for the pho­tos I took. But in Decem­ber 2006, I made a web­site, sold some prints & note cards, took some family pho­tos, and was asked to shoot a wed­ding. 07.07.07 I shot my first wed­ding — and I haven’t stop­ped going since. I love EVERY SECOND of it (well maybe not tax sea­son..) but for real — this is an ama­zingly hum­bling thing I’ve found within me and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Howe­ver, some­ti­mes in the back of my head, even with 250+ shoots under my belt, I think — “but I never took a class, what if I’m doing it all wrong?”

There are pho­to­graphy workshops every time your turn around — near & far — short & long — and some hos­ted by peo­ple that I would totally con­si­der it an honor to learn from — but when Bobbi hin­ted at a workshop I thought, gosh — THAT would be the one. And when she relea­sed the options for dates of the workshops I thought — gosh, THAT would be the one. And then I deci­ded that HAD to be the one. I nee­ded to do this for myself as a pho­to­grapher, and more impor­tantly for myself as a per­son. Outside the fact that I have a total photo.girl.crush on Bobbi (and totally a crush on Mike too!) I nee­ded to pur­sue this adven­ture and to hear wha­te­ver it was that they had to say. … Loo­king back, when I sig­ned up, I really had no idea what they were “selling” sylla­bus wise — I just knew that I couldn’t miss it.

In early February they announ­ced the dates, and then announ­ced when they’d open sig­nups. 10 peo­ple per workshop, 3 workshops — but I wan­ted the first one. (you never for­get your first!) Sign ups ope­ned at 3pm.. the time I leave work. At 2:45 I ope­ned the page and fran­ti­cally follo­wed her twit­ter feed wai­ting for go time in bet­ween refreshing the sig­nup page to see if the cart was open yet. tick.refresh.tick.refresh.tick.refresh.tick. GO! I was all full of adre­na­line and crazy as I added the 2 day pho­to­graphy workshop and 1/​2 day album desig­ning workshop to my cart, sub­mit­ted my order, and squea­led with delight as I was IN! Then I got in the car to drive home and thought — now what the heck am I going to do?! I’m going all alone to a place I’ve never been to meet stran­gers to talk about something I don’t even know that I’m doing right. crap.dammit. But I pulled up my big girl pan­ties and made the appro­priate tra­vel plans. Leave Sun­day, come back Wed­nes­day night — taxis & a giant hotel rooms to myself. It would be the lon­gest I’d ever been away from home on my own. If I wasn’t before, I was cer­tainly a grown up now. (within rea­son of course )

Less than 2 months later it was time to go. Nichole & Ben­ja­min drove me to the air­port and with only minor, but hugely frus­tra­ting delays on my layo­ver, and a not so scary taxi ride, I was in down­town India­na­po­lis and freshe­ning up to go for a drink with the beau­ti­ful Ash­ley Cohn from MN — another workshop atten­dee, we’d all been emai­ling once the workshop ros­ter was relea­sed and Ash­ley and I mana­ged to coör­di­nate eve­ning sche­du­les. It was nice to know hea­ding into it Mon­day mor­ning that there would be at least one ‘fami­liar’ face.

The workshop was phe­no­me­nal we tal­ked and lear­ned and loved and laughed and cried and taught and sha­red and colla­bo­ra­ted. I didn’t do much with my camera, I pro­bably could have just as easily left it at home, but I did bring it along on the real-​people-​not-​models-​who-​were-​actually-​engaged enga­ge­ment ses­sion we got to wit­ness and I couldn’t help but take a few photos.

Here’s the whole group (minus one Miche­lle) l:r Miche­lle, Ash­ley, Faye, Jenna, Sarah, Les­lie, Heather, Mike, Crys­tal Jo & front and cen­ter, Bobbi taking pho­tos of BJ & Rachel — enga­ged cou­ple extraor­di­naire. Let me tell you — watching bobbi+mike shoot was so awe­some. Not only are they fan­tas­ti­cally hys­te­ri­cal, they had even more crazy tricks up their slee­ves than I did — which means I was totally on the right track and now armed with even more fun and hila­rity! new & impro­ved!

Down­town Indy is really fas­ci­na­ting — so indus­trial and full of very-different-than-I’m-used-to shoo­ting oppor­tu­ni­ties. I’ve lear­ned to look har­der around here in the sea­coast, but it really is stran­gely idy­llic… (I do love that, but some­ti­mes old and bro­ken and dif­fe­rent is a lot of fun too!)

The weather had been over­cast all day, but by the end of our shoot, the ‘magic light’ tried to make an appea­rance — we were all on the top of the par­king garage and I deci­ded to pull out my ‘far away’ lens and see what I could do from my strictly obser­ver stand­point wor­king around 11 other peo­ple all watching or shoo­ting the same sub­jects. It was awe­so­me­sauce x2.

Bobbi explai­ning some of the thoughts behind her shoo­ting — so much genius pac­ked in to such a petite body!

I sort of love these 4 — a lot.

I can honestly say that this was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself — bobbi+mike and the rest of the group were fan­tas­tic and the know­ledge was inva­lua­ble. I left Wed­nes­day after­noon with new friends, new ideas, and secure and com­for­ta­ble kno­wing I am hea­ded in the right direc­tion and that I want to do this for years and years to come.

much love friends!