Portraiture Workshops | Kota Kinabalu

© 2009 Wazari Wazir | Spylens Studio Photography and Photoshop Workshops | Kota Kinabalu Sabah

This is my first Portraiture Photoshop Workshops in Kota Kinabalu Sabah, a million thanks to my friend Roslee Karim for organizing this workshops under his company Spylens Studio. I was at Kota Kinabalu two days before the workshops just to make sure everything was in working order, making final preparation in Spylens Studio where the editing class will take place. This is also the first time my photoshop editing class taking place in the studio, previous workshops was in the hotel seminar room and not to mention my “Mini Workshops” taking place in “Coffee Shop” all over Kuala Lumpur.

We start our workshops with get to know session and I’m a bit surprise to know that almost all of them come from”Educational Background”, teachers, lecturers and also those who involve in “Education Environment”. Our photo shoot was a bit late, the sun is high already but we did make the most of the times and the lighting available, yes we just play with natural light, no reflector and no flash. I did not get the best shot but I do believe that most of my student get the best angle and the best expression from the model, I don’t want to make this photo shoot personal, so I just let my participants enjoy their time with the model.

After we have our light snack and tea break, it’s where the fun start, the editing, we head to Spylens Studio to do our editing. Some people just could not wait to edit their picture, this is not photojournalist workshops where minimal editing is all we need but this is “Artistic Editing”, where we enhance our picture just for pure enjoyment and satisfaction, I came from photojournalist background so I do know where to draw the line when it come to editing “Photojournalist Picture” but when it come to personal stuff, for me and for my opinion, the sky is not the limit, we are only limited by our own imagination.

The first thing that I really stress to all the participant is, we must get a great shot from a start, Photoshop is not a tools to fix a bad picture but it is a tool for enhancement. To enhance our picture to make it even better and more presentable,  even in those “Darkroom Days” they do the editing in the dark, dodging and burning here and there, to get great contrast and tone between dark area, grey and totally white area. If the picture was printed without any dodging and burning, the picture will look flat, lifeless, even though the picture is great on it’s own, it still need few “editing” in the darkroom to make it more presentable.

To all the participants, thank you very much for your support. Feel free to expand the ideas and the method that you have just learn, let the juice of creativity flow freely.