Workshops
My workshops employ the same proven instruction method used by the US Army.
Take this camera, put it on automatic and shoot everything you see.
Let God post-process the results.
I offer a 5 day class instructing you in my picture-taking techniques should you be interested.
You’d be crazy to be interested but the world is a crazy place.
I do it for the money. Like proctologists.
5 days. $10,000 NZD.
All expenses prepaid by you - transportation, lodging, food, damage deposit.
It’s like a trade show, Apple off-site or Baptist convention.
Actually there are no prostitutes. That’s a Baptist convention.
You would have to be escaping drug-addled kids, a toxic work environment or a hellish spouse to consider it.
I turn people away.
Business is great.
The class schedule coincides with the cycles of the living.
Up at 11AM for coffee.
Instruction on the automatic mode after lunch from 2-4PM.
Wine tasting until 5PM.
Talking about the golden hour that we missed plus more wine tasting and dinner at 7PM.
Does this sound like something you would be interested in?
It should. It’s my life. I find my life interesting. Without the Baptists.
I also offer a 1 day course for the same fee.
It’s gets dark about 5PM in New Zealand in the winter so we shorten the class.
You will still receive the same training. Same fee.
But more wine drinking and eating.
Think about why you are coming before you sign up.
I will take you to Invercargill to see the greeny-blue-wavy Boreal Onions or whatever it’s called.
No one anywhere has ever seen the Boreal Onions.
They just say they have and photoshop the photos.
The Boreal Onions is like snipes, milk chocolate and world peace.
No one takes it seriously.
You have the same odds of seeing the Boreal Onions here as a kangaroo.
None. You are in the wrong country.
You undershot the runway by 1,500 miles and 25 years.
This is Aotearoa. Land of the Long White Cloud, $12/gallon gas and women with full facial hair.
No one works. Everyone is on ACC. The minimum wage is $150/hour.
If you are seeing kangaroos you are in Oz with the convicts.
Shit scenery but great food. Sunshine. Excellent shiraz.
Stay there.
I’ll send you photos from Flickr to call your own and an invoice.
See how flexible my class is?
Back to the instruction.
You’re really not coming to New Zealand with a 14 day quarantine.
And no kangaroos. And bad food. And the short, dark winter days.
Get a travel guide and read before you sign up.
Am I your caregiver?
5 days of instruction in the use of the automatic settings.
I throw in the theory and practice of the automatic focus for free on the last day.
If we have time.
The bus to the airport leaves the iCenter at 4:45.
I have taken 15 photos in 15 years that were ‘usable’.
Maybe fewer if I tell the truth, which you never do in business.
Assume we do 2 hours of instruction between morning coffee an dinner. “
And cut out the golden hour.
That gives you a .000032 chance of taking a good photo in my class.
I think that is acceptable.
My barber, Rob, has a motto,
“It will grow back”.
He is right and it usually does.
Usually longer on the left side than the right side - like Groucho Marx.
Rob also watches women walk by as he cuts hair.
”She could wear that a little tighter…”
Zippppp! Ouch!
Another chunk of bleeding flesh cut from my scalp.
”Sorry mate…it’ll heal”.
Rob has two mottos.
I have a motto.
”I taught you everything I know and still you don’t know anything.”
Had you looked at my photos you would know what you would be getting for your money.
But then you are in Oz and haven’t paid your invoice.
Why should I care about someone that doesn’t attend my class or pay the invoice?
I am cancelling my camera class until further notice.
I have to clean up the wine bottles, glasses and camera gear left behind.
I can’t teach and do housework.
I have to feed the kangaroos.
And stop the flow of blood on my head.