Winnie Bruce Photography :: Basking in the Light Workshop Review

I took a head first dive with my business this past weekend and took my very first in person workshop! And as I sit here on a high from the overload of amazing images and amazing knowledge I absorbed I want to write about my experience with Winnie Bruce Photography's Basking in the Light Workshop!

I first want to start off with saying a few words about Winnie and getting to know her on a personal level. I have never really had good luck with friendships in this business. Sure I have had a few friends that I could go to sometimes and shop talk with, but I have never met a person so passionate about helping other photographers like Winnie. She has made me fall even more in love with this business. She has pushed me more than anyone else I have ever met in my life to go further with myself and my business. I always know that she has my back. She respects me as a person, as a business owner, and as a friend. In this industry this is a very very rare find. I have never had someone that has believed in me so much like Winnie does. She truly makes me see the value of my work and never lets me doubt myself. She is not only a mentor to me, she has become family. She has seen me at rock bottom and has always been there for me. "Thank You" will never be enough to thank her for everything she has done for me and my business. She genuinely wants to see people that have "it" succeed and will light a fire under you so hot that you will go leaps and bounds in this business.  

(picture credit  // winnie bruce photography)

Ok enough of the sap -- Let's get down to the nitty gritty of this two day workshop!

She entitled it "Bask in the Light" simply because that is exactly how Winnie shots. She finds these dreamy pockets of hazy sun and places her subjects perfectly in them causing for soft dreamy light that just takes your breath away! She also focused on editing; going through her process, workflow, organizing, and developing and editing images. Enhancing and finding the beauty of what's already in the image is what she truly wants you to achieve out of each edit! And Winnie also touches on business tips, but the main focus is enhancing your image, from location, to clothing, to editing, to delivering your images to your clients.

Winnie took six fellow photographers (myself included) under her wing for her flagship workshop! Of the six attendees, none were at the exact same place in their photography journey. There was even an attendee who hadn’t started a business yet and some that had been in business for years. Everyone had something to give and something to learn.

(swag bag with a few of winnie's favorite vendors!)

:: Day One ::
Myself and the other five attendees all met at Winnie's beautiful cozy home. We did a little meet and greet, chatted a bit about where we were in out photography journey, what got is into this business, what types of images we are drawn to and one thing we would like to improve upon. We then drove into the handy-dandy workbook that Winnie had printed off for us. Day one we talked mainly about the business side of photography which included things like; pricing, booking appointments, products, organizing your business, giving your clients an amazing experience, social media tips, and she even includes a list of her favorite vendors with a few discount codes to use! You really do not even need to bring a pen! Everything is in the workbook!! EVERYTHING! She hides nothing from you which is amazing! But just in case, she even leaves you some blank "Note" pages at the end to write down anything extra :)
We then all loaded up in the cars and headed out for the first shoots of the workshop! She had an AMAZING styled couples shoot -- Styled by the fabulous Blackbird Vintage Market -- With an amazingly beautiful couple! There were two setups; one a simple picnic style setup on a vintage quilt and another more fall setup with pumpkins and a vintage bench. Simple, beautiful, but still just enough to make the session pop! We each took turns with each pose getting our shots. Winnie walked us through how to do her "go-to" couples posing and even showed us just where to place them in that soft dreamy hazy light that she is known so well for! We shoot the couple for about an hour and then we moved on to our two high school senior girls! These two beautiful young ladies totally rocked our worlds! I loved this part of the day just because I have not yet really broken into the high school senior market but I defiantly could see myself doing a lot more down the road! Again, Winnie walked us through all of her "go-to" posing and how to play with that dreamy light! It was such an amazing experience to see her in her element and watch how she works her magic with her clients.
We ended that day back at Winnie's place stuffing our faces full of yummy Chinese food and talking about our experience how excited we all were to get home and edit some of our amazing images from the day.

(photo credit // winnie bruce photography) :: Day Two :: As if day one wasn't enough, there is a second day! This day started off a little earlier in the morning and we kicked it right off diving back into the workbook and talking about what we needed to know about our files, what to save our images as, workflow, culling, adjustments, photoshop edits, cropping, photoshop and ACR tips, and streamlining your workflow. Winnie then goes into showing us how she would edit a few images from the day one shoots. She hand edits a few of her favorite images from start to finish right there in front of our faces and even shows a few of her editing tricks. Along the way she makes sure your questions are answered and will go back through the steps if you missed something along the way.  We then took our lunch break and headed to an uber yummy sandwich shop! It was just the perfect light lunch before we headed out for the day two shoots. The shoots for this day were held on one of Winnie's exclusive locations! Talk about lucky! She is the only local photographer that has access to this property so it was such an honor for us to get to use this amazing property! This time it was set much more like a shoot out. We had three models; two younger girls and a high school senior. We broke up in teams of two with one model got to explore and shoot on our own with Winnie walking around and checking in our us along the way. She wanted to test us and make us spread our wings and get the experience of using with we had learned the day before. We rotated between the three models and each got our turns. I teamed up with Sharon of Sharon Neves Photography and we had a blast shooting together! It was such a fun time tag teaming with her! After the last of our evening light was fading away, it was time to say goodbye to everyone and thank Winnie for such an amazing experience. After two days and over 2100 images I have walked away with an even bigger fire lit under me, some amazing new friendships, and experience I will never forget! If you’re interested in investing in a wonderful workshop focused on taking your business to the next level I encourage you to research Winnie Bruch Photography Basking in the Light Workshop and find a way to make it happen! And of course if you aren't following Winnie and her amazing work (and I highly HIGHLY highly recommend you do!) you can find it HERE or HERE. I cannot say enough how much I recommend this workshop! You will walk away from this with a fire light. You will come way and have learned something new. You will love this workshop and want to tell everyone about it...just like me :) // And now some images from the workshop!

(just a few of the images i have edited from the shoots! i cannot wait to share a full post of these images!)

(dorthy, myself, & sharon photo bombing - image credit // dottie schwark photography instagram)