My goal is to install enthusiasm in any photographer and raise his or her skill level, self-confidence and production volume. And I do.
By: Thorsten Overgaard
I generally don't focus on technology or offer Nirvana for gearheads. But I recognize any sort of photography as an art form and a way to communicate on an aesthetic level without words. Which is an ability we all have and which can be improved from no matter what level you are at.
And that is the only business plan I have: I can make you a better photographer.
Since I started delivering photo seminars some years ago I have expanded the ways to share what I know. And here is an overview.
1. The basic and very popular photo seminar
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Seminar drilling on the first evening of the seminar at Fitzroy Street in London |
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Theory on first evening in Copenhagen |
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Second evening of the seminar with theory and assignment critique in New York |
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Home assignment work in Aurba |
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The photo seminar is usually for up to eight people and starts out for example a Friday evening where we go over theory and drills. The next day we go out and shoot in the town, trying to shoot indoor, on large places and in more compact places, as well as people. It depends on which city we are in and the people, but photogarphing people in the street is always a subject of interest to many. It's a very friendly experience as the group usually consist of people from that town as well as people who came in for the seminar. We get to exchange equipment, tips and tricks, and there is always time for individual questions either on the street or when we go to have coffee, dinner or lunch.
The first evening of the seminar contains a "dogma assignment" where each participant has to do three assignments. Those can be done on the day we go shoot or at other times. But usually we meet again on the Sunday or Monday evening and end off with showcases and the rest of the seminar.
I often feel tempted to change the first evening of the seminar because it's the least sexy part, but every time the evening end off with everyone learning more about something they thought they knew everything about. It's the basics of photography, simply told, workable - but most of all necessary to be able to put more knowledge on top of it. Which is why the first evening has stayed unchanged since the beginning with only a few improvements.
The group is usually a majority of Leica photographers, and those who are not usually become Leica users very soon after. Thing is that photography is simple and doesn't require loads of gear and features. It requires knowledge and workability, at least the way I teach it, and if there is one camera brand that delivers just that, it's Leica.
The photo seminar continues to be happening around the world to the degree there is interest and I have time for it. Currently there is upcoming seminars in Paris, London, Hamburg and Hong Kong. I'm also trying to set up seminars in Tokyo, Moscow and Aruba and Nigeria (where I'll be going anyways in December 2010). And New York and Los Angeles are given to happen again later in 2010, as is Copenhagen, Denmark. To find out more or to learn how to participate click here, or e-mail directly at thorsten@overgaard.dk
Price: 1,200$ though I often offer "early bird" discounts which brings the price down. Read more here.
Note that I'm also doing a speical Digilux 2 seminar in London. E-mail thorsten@overgaard.dk for availability and prices. You may want to read the Leica Digilux 2 pages here if you're not familiar with them.
2. The professional seminar (which no one think they need)
The before mentioned photo seminar is often done around weekends so that people from out of town can come in for an extended weekend and participate, then return home for work and family. Whenever it is possible, those who are interested can stay for one more full day of seminar, which is the seminar about professional workflow.
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Working with computer workflow in Berlin |
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Lightroom editing in Århus, Denmark |
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Working with computer workflow in Berlin |
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In short, it teaches the tricks necessary to produce a flood of final images ready to use. There is usually quite some learning courve involved in going from amateur to professional, so the seminar teaches the pieces necessary to be a very high producing photographer in the digital age - not in terms of images shot but in terms of final images that are ready to be used. As an example, I will usually shoot 200-1,200 images in a day and have finished the editing of all of them the same day. They are completely done, delivered and backed up. So how does one do that every day? That is what one learn, and it involves color calibrated workflow, decision-making and selction of images, editing in Lightroom or Aperture, Digital Asset Management, keywords, folders, backup, basic Photoshop skills (the ones necesary to finish an image), storing and delivering images ready for use on web and in print.
It's an 8-hour checklist we go through as a small group of 3-4 persons and it will change your life from one who spend 2/3 of your time never actually finishing editing all of your images to one who will now spend 2/3 of your energy photographing and always have final images from the day to present family, colleagues and clients with (and an orderly archive).
One thing we go over that many seem to have trouble with, is selecting images. It's not a big thing on the seminar, but it's usually where the workflow stops for most photographers: They just can't decide which images are good enough why they never really get to finalize anything. The result being cluttered hard drives, family members overwhelmed with too many images too look at, and a feeling of not being good enough.
All in all this seminar is one many think they will do fine without. Or they think they deserve to spend 2/3 of their time by the computer without accomplishing a 100% result. So if that is how you work, this is actually for you, believe it or not.
If you recall any great photographer you know, you know almost all their images. It isn't that many. Because they had a workflow where they did final images and didn't show you all their b-shots. If they had, you wouldn't consider them special. And that is what distinguish an amateaur from a professional; that the professional produce final images (and not harddrives filled with unselected images).
Price is 1,200$ and you can read more about the seminar here.
3. The Extension Course(s) you can do from home and in-between work and family life
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Start now. Only 298$
"The Overgaard Photography Extension Course"
You can enroll and pay here:
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or you can send an e-mail to thorsten@overgaard.dk to enroll via invoice and bank transfer/checque.
You will receive your first materials in a few days.
You can see an outline of the couse here. |
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Both the above seminars exist as extension courses. Simply beacuse I continue to get e-mails from around the world from the most distant places, from people asking if they can join a seminar 14 flight-hours away. It's not that they can't, it's just that despite how enthusiastic some might be about my skills and my seminars, I feel bad that anyone should travel that long and incur such great expenses to do my seminar. So I decided to do them as extension corses as well, which has turned out to work very well for those who are on them.
The extension course naturally doesn't have the live aspect and we don't get to meet in person. But I actually like extension courses myself because you get some data in bits that you can try out, then you get some more to build further on, then some more. It's a very good way to learn that is fitted individually so you can drink coffe, go on holidays, have babies, do the lawn and make money in between course sessions. And yet you get all the data because you are the "only one in the class room."
The extension courses also allow for more examples, more home assignments and more text than the live seminars, simply because we don't have to sit together with a time limit. So the extension course offers more material and more work and a much lower price than the seminar.
Usual completion time is 40 hours of work, spread over 22 sections done over periods from 2 to 12 months. The price is 298$ for The Photography Extension Course and 498$ for the workflow course. You can click on the links and sign up immediately via PayPal.
Student example from the extension course:
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| Manual white balance using grey card |
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| Electronic flash setting |
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Outdoor sunlight |
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Incandescent light |
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| Auto white balance |
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Cloudy |
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Shade |
Some times home assignments can take a dramatic turn, as in the above with dangerous animals in the livingroom in front of the Leica X1. Jan Martijn Metselaar of Netherlands who did this impressive and methodical home assignment on the subject of white balance, noted "I always though Auto White Balance was fairly correct, but never realized the difference could be so big. The Manual White Balance results is a far better reproduction of the actual colors than the Auto White Balance."
4. One-on-one tutoring with Thorsten Overgaard
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Working with Leica S2 and timing by shooting bicycles going by |
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Student working with models, natural light and me and my assistant as helpers |
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Working with model and natural light, wardrobe and assistants |
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A very fun and exclusive offer is my one-on-one training. It's usually a week or two of personalized workshop in the editing office and out shooting models and things in real life, mixed with bits of theory I find necessary to go over. It takes place either here in Aarhus, Denmark or in your area.
For some people it makes sense that now they have spend tens of tousands of dollars on equipment, they should spend a bit more money and learn how to utilize it, without spending months or years learing by them self. The need is always very specific why the tutoring is tailored to that exact need, choice of equipment.
Some times one-on-one training can be an afternoon where we go shoot and address a certain skill or problem. It's very easy to fix things and see how they are done correct when you experience them, rather tha read about them. If I'm in your area anyways for work or seminars, or you are here around, it's a possibility.
"This spring I spent a week with Thorsten Overgaard in Denmark. It was terrific! I would recommend the one-on-one course to anyone interested in photography.
Thorsten is very involved in the course, no "teaching assistants", and his input and guidance is invaluable."
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Joseph Hughes
Price is in the range of 12,000$ a week (or 300 - 350$ an hour), depending on what preparation I will be doing for the training. The way to go about is by sending an e-mail to me at thorsten@overgaard.dk
Student sample from the one-on-one courses:
As Lars Klottrup of Denmark stated after a daylight studio experience (above) where he couldn't believe that the display of his Nikon was not correct, he had the following comment after the images had been through Lightroom: "Ok, an external light meter isn't that bad an idea!". The two top samples are outdoor with the use of reflectors and silk screens.
5. Week-long workshop "for the filthy rich"
Currently I'm planning a week-long workshop around May 2011 for a smaller group, somewhere in Europe, in a villa with our own chef and lots of work to be done. Half the spaces are still open and anyone who might be interested in this can e-mail me at thorsten@overgaard.dk for more information.
The working title "for the filthy rich" is partly fun, patly true. It is a workshop that will be tailored for those for whom it is a full-time job trying to spend all the money they have, and for whom exclusivity and quality counts in doing so. So it will have some exclusive parts built in, as well as a huge workload that will prevent the participants from spending any money for a whole week - apart from the money they pay for the seminar. And then it will have an element you can usually not buy for money: Love for artistic skills.
6. Summer School in Solms
I'm hoping to come up with a package concept for a very economical workshop in Solms for photography students and young talents. It still requires some conceptual worke as it requires the possibility to come in as a poor student or talented artist and walk out with professional skills and a professional Leica kit.
It will not be a seminar for certain selected ones, it's not a talent competition, but will be very marxistic and revolutionary in it's approact to photography. The Leica world needs new blood.
7. A book is coming
It's a bit early to announce this, but there will come a digital book in 2011 where I will exemplify my ideas about photography. A student in Los Angeles asked me to come up with "the axioms of photography" which would then be a rather short list of ever-evident truths to be inspired by.
The problem in this is to be able to cook photography down to short statements that together would be the always-right truths for any photographer about all photography. So I'm reluctant to promise such a thing; as it's hard to be that precise, and also hard to grasp fully even if done. So what I will promise is a book that takes off in such axioms or statements, with full chapters dealing with each subject, exemplified with lots of real work images.
8. A word on the basics of photography
In short, my experience with photographers from all over the world and at any level of photography is that they seek inspiration, enthusiasm, tools and (or should I say but) they all need to learn the basics of photography.
On a few occasions I've trusted someone who said, "I know the basics, I just want to learn about..." and then we head on with that. But thing is, when we get into playing with some exotic and exiting photography such as playing with special lenses, models and reflectors and silk screens, the lack of basic knowledge will prevent you from actually getting the results you could easily get if you just knew how the camera worked (and mainly which buttons not to use).
So I teach basics on my seminars, and I teach basics in the extension course. I've cut it down to a 3-4 hour exercise that is close to state of the art because it teaches what is necessary – crystal clear – and nothing more.
"I have picked up little pieces I did not know in over 30 years" one of my extension course students said, and it's true that few know the actual relation between the dials on the camera. And you need to if you want to take photos. You don't need to know about, you need to know it the same way you use a piece of paper to write on. It should not involve thinking or figuring out to use a camera. If you don't know the basics you may have the perfect composition, the right moment where something historic happens ... but your exposure is all wrong. The tolerances are broader today; with digital RAW files you can adjust after the fact to some degree, so you may get back things you would have lost with film images. But it's a waste of time not knowing the basics, it gives you extra work, and it confuses your photographing that you really are not sure. So I give you the data, and with some training in using them you should be able to have confidence that in any given situation, you can get a proper image out of it.
Someone said recently that he joined my extension course because he "wanted to move from snapshot to photography" which is in fact an interesting comment, because photography is planning a photo seconds or days or years before you actually get it. But you do see the image, and then you get it. Whereas snapshot is shooting and hoping it's there without any knowledge, planning, timing or anything involved.
So where you should get to is being able to achieve the photo opportunities you envision. Modern cameras become more and more snapshot cameras; quite a lot of professionals depend on the automatic features and shoot machine-gun style on auto-focus in the hope that one of the images may contain something of use. And that is snapshotting.
Some envision a future where you shoot video hires, and then you can find the right images afterwards. That is really snapshot machinegun, and it would involve a lot of harddrive space and a lot of editing to find those shots. But if it doesn't involve a prevision of the image and a knowledge on how to get it, it won't work (the images for Rolling Stones' album Exile was in fact shot with an 8mm film camera and then the still images taken from there. But it was by a photographer who envisioned what to get, and got it).
You need to be a photographer, and to the degree you can plan and execute a photograph in a usable quality, no matter the conditions you face, to that degree you are a professional. And there is nothing stopping you but your self and lack of basic knowledge. So that is why we go over the basics.
Part of the basics, by the way, is white balance. I never cease to be surprised just how big a wonder people consider white balance once they get to understand how to use it. It's one of those things we all know about but don't utilize. After the seminar or extension course, you do.
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