I’ve been lookig forward to last saturday because Strobist came to Paris for a seminar. At first I wasn’t sure I would go because I feel I’ve got the strobist thing pretty much covered. But when Pieter (one of the best Belgian wedding photographers) offered me a seat in his car, I decided to go anyway and I’m really happy I did. The other seats were taken up by Ake and Madelien.

Ake has assisted me on a few shoots, so I already knew she’s a great photographer and fun to be around. Despite we’ve exchanged many e-mails, I never met Pieter. I never met Madeline either, but was looking forward to meet the girl behind all those fantastic music pictures.  It’s amazing how well we got along from the first minute on.

Instead of being an annoying side effect of going to the seminar, the 3 hour drive became a photo nerd’s heaven. It was so much fun to talk equipment, techniques and business knowing that for once nobody in the party would be bored after 5 minutes.

We didn’t limit ourselves to talking and soon got some camera’s and lighting gear out. To the other drivers on the road, our car must have looked like a disco with flashes going off all the time. We also saw several cars in front of us slowing down, thinking they had been caught speeding.

Ake must have connections in Ghent’s maffia, because she scored us some croissants at 4:30 in the morning. We all appreciated Ake’s talents during a pitstop. We then held a 5-minute fisheye portrait session.

We arrived in Paris on time and met some fellow strobists at the hotel door. You could easily tell who was there for the seminar: underdressed for the fancy hotel and a Lowepro bag over the shoulder. It was really nice to meet some people who’s work I really appreciate.

David’s laid back approach immediately got 40 photographers in a friendly and enthousiastic mood. We started with the theory. No real surprises to me but because David spiced it up with lots of practical tips, it was really interesting anyway.

At noon we ended up with about the whole Belgian strobist delegation in a pretty good Italian restaurant. After lunch we proceeded to some hands on strobism. I dare to say that I’m pretty quick in assessing the posibilities of a location and using them to make a portrait. But compared to David I’m a snail. It’s just incredible how fast he can set up a portrait.

David is an incredibly gifted teacher who knows how to explain pretty complex things in an easy matter. I’ve learned a lot for my own workshops too.

David is also the first ever photography stand-up comedian. At the end of the day my jaws hurt from laughing.  This humour makes the whole atmosphere so relaxed and inspired everyone to share their techniques, try out each other’s lenses, talk gear, … That made the seminar not just a seminar but also a meeting place where long term friendships are molded.
Being a freelance photographer allows me to meet lots of different people, but at times it can be lonely too. I used to work as an employee and at that time I never really understood the value of a chat with fellow workers at the coffee machine. Now I’m self employed I sometimes miss those informal chats. Seminars like these fill that gap really well.

After the seminar most people went to a nearby bar. It turned out that the price of  5 beers in Paris, would buy you a complete bar in Belgium. Nine euro’s for a beer is pretty expensive but when the liquid turned out to be Heineken, you can really call it a rip-off. We’ll just try to lure David to Belgium next year with the promise of real Belgian beer for around 2 euro’s a glass.

I had a really interesting chat with David, which turned the beer into a good investment. It was nice to finally talk to David after I’ve been reading his blog from the early days on.

Another good side effect of the price of a beer was that we were still completely sober when we dived into the Paris traffic.

We took a wrong exit because I blinded Pieter trying to make a strobist groupshot of the four of us.

I’m still recovering from the long and intense day, but I enjoyed every second of it.  If you like to know more about light, speedlights or just want to experience a fantastic show, I would highly recommend attending one of David’s seminars.

Pieter has  put up some great pics of our trip on his blog. You can even see a fantastic picture of the making of the fisheye portraits. There are some nice pics too on Ake’s blog. Both blogs are in Dutch, but the pictures speak for themselves.

Thanks David!