I just posted my favourites wedding photos of 2009 and thought it was worth a nod to explain what it takes to keep improving the quality of your images year upon year. How does one keep upping the ante?

If you are looking for a few tips on how to give your photography a kick in the pants in 2010 here it is:

- Take more photos. Even if you go out with a compact. Get the creative side of your brain engaged and shoot every day. I carry a small camera with me every day. It doesn't match the quality of my Canon gear, but liken it to the difference in quality of 35mm vs medium format film: perfectly adequate. Small enough for portability, but powerful enough to make 'keepers' that even I am happy with:


- Don't take yourself too seriously: listen to your peers, be honest with them about their work and ask them to be honest with you about yours. I'm lucky enough to be part of a great community here in Boston and a handful of us head to a monthly critique night at Mike and Kate's.

 
- Get on Flickr! No it isn't Facebook without a wall and annoying widgets. Flickr's been around for yonks (well at least since woolly mammoths were wondering the internet). It is a great way to stay connected to your photographer peers and explore billions of images for inspiration. Sure there's a lot of rubbish, but there's an incredible amount of amazing work that will stimulate the brain, especially on these cold days. I'm there (http://flickr.com/brownphotographic)

- Lastly, invest! No I'm not talking about chewing up all of your $ on the next big lens. Every year or so, invest in yourself, peel yourself away from flickr, twitter and facebook and enrol in a workshop. Ask your peers for good options. I've been on a couple recently:

Photo Biz Bootcamp run by Liana Lehman. Great 2-3 day (by day I mean long hours, but fun) course to get yourself on track, establish goals and make sure you are running a business solid enough to support yourself and your family.

Roots Workshop - a visual storytelling workshop run by Emilie Sommer and taught by an insanely talented group of working photojournalists. I continually wax lyrical about this workshop and for good reason. See my full report here.  The quality of my imagery has gone up tenfold, I've keyed my brain in to visual storytelling and I cannot contemplate not have invested in this one. They sold out for 2010 in just a day, so for a chance to get on the list for 2011 you'd better pay attention to the blog www.rootsworkshop.net . A 5D2 or D700 may be high on your list, but if you're looking to improve your storytelling rather than getting lower noise, drop the money on this workshop and have an incredible time doing it.

 

I am forever learning - I'm a complete nerd when it comes to photography - I soak up everything photo related and try to put it out simply to my fellow photographers on my twitter stream. When it comes to new tricks such as the most efficient way to control your aperture and shutter at the same time I'm the man. Nobody knows where it get it from, but they appreciate the geekdom :) I know my gear back to front; I can light pretty much anything; but when it came to trying to find a unique story in every wedding or a family portrait session I was honestly starting to become unstuck.

Earlier in the year my friend Shyla was featured in a video review of the Roots Workshop (yes that's me in both shots) - a week long boot camp introduction photojournalism to get a grasp of visual storytelling. Run by Emilie Sommer a professional photojournalist and wedding photographer extraordinaire from Portland ME, the workshop gathers together an impressive talent pool of her PJ friends: Greg Gibson, Tyler Wirken, Rachel LaCour Niesen, Mark Adams and Jennifer Domenick (and not forgetting J Sandifer as head chef and Mr Eric Laurits as the resident workshop storyteller). Add just a handful of students to the mix and what you get is a rather impressive tutor/student ratio! I called Shyla and it didn't take long for her to convince me to go.

The concept is this:
- Throw all of us together under the same roof of a lovely Cape Cod house for a week.
- Provide us with amazing food so we can just concentrate on the task at hand.
- Give us a thorough grounding in story telling and beat out the preconceived notions of what photojournalism really is.
- Assess our strengths and weaknesses and then give us a gruelling two day assignment that really, really tests us.
- Try to find a story and a way of telling it through beautiful images.
- Have your mentors come out, follow you around and kick your butt! Love it!
- Enjoy jumping off the dock after a tough day.
- At the end of each day sit us down in front of everyone, then image by image, disect exactly what and why we were trying to do.
- Send us back out with a clearer sense of where we were going.
- At the end of it all relish the lobster bake and present your story to the whole house.

Well I think I made it sound incredibly easy, but as Emilie puts it: "it is most certainly not a fluff workshop. Students will work hard and be critiqued hard". Yup, hard it was! Not being one that was ever good at easy, I relished the whole week.

My assignment was at a YMCA camp on the Cape with kids hanging literally from my cameras. Not having 'camp' back in England, the concept wasn't entirely new to me but I didn't really know what to expect. When I got there on the first day I walked up over the brow of a hill to a sea of colour and the immense noise of hundreds of kids and their camp counsellors. Then it hit me: how was I going to find a story in that? Then something else hit me: that was exactly why they sent me here! Not being able to carry any more gear than two cameras and a spare battery, the only thing I could concentrate on was the story.

Jennifer, Mark and Tyler provided critical feedback while I was either drenched from a full day of rain or knee deep in water trying to get action shots of the kids swimming in the lake. I came back from the first day feeling rather deflated, but after the first critique night with Tyler and Mark providing some pretty humorous ways of making me rethink my actions (complete with legendary quotes), I went forth into day two feeling energised and more purposeful. Taking all of the advice on board I was able to develop a simple story that showed the emotions of the kids and the counsellors, as both were as important as each other. At the end of it all I came away with a cohesive set of images that I delivered to everyone on the last evening.

I learned a huge amount, gained a much better sense of visual story telling and came away with a great bunch of new friends. Roots was the best workshop I have attended - the hardest work, but certainly the most ground covered in advancing my skills.

Every time I now shoot I'm constantly drawing on everything I learned - it helped me to see differently and find the story when one is not always obviously there.

Take a look at the story below and add your comments!
 

Caitlin and Jon's wedding in Marblehead, MA.

I reprocessed this image in Silver Efex Pro and Photoshop. Added structure and contrast to the grass; burned in the bottom edge and all four corners. Added contrast to the clouds, brightened the wedding dress and flowers and retained detail in the water. This is the first page of their wedding album.

I love reworking images. This one has the effect of a Holga, with vignetting on one side, a bright centre and Kodak T-MAX effect to finish it off.

I miss black and white film and wet prints, but Nik Silver Effex Pro gives everything but the hole in your wallet back.