Why going to an international photography workshop is the stupidest thing we’ve ever done for our career!
REWIND – It all started back in October 2009, along with 8 other photographers from around the world. Jeremy and I flew thousands of miles to journey to Hong Kong & Beijing to attend master photographer Scott Robert Lim’s World Tour China workshop.
I was so freaking out of taking any picture of the model, all I did at that workshop was taking all the behind the scene randoms shots like this. This is my photo from the workshop.
Without much portrait or wedding photography experience, we imagined that after attending Scott’s workshop, we would gain all the answers we would need to know on becoming a master photographer in a short period of time! We were hoping to learn shortcuts, tips & tricks, and secrets to a successful career in photography. Easy, right?
Well, after spending more than a week with Scott and his students, we learned NO secrets and NO shortcuts on becoming a successful photography team. What happened? <scratching heads>
Let me tell you……
Scott talked about elements of how to have success in shooting portrait, glamour & wedding photography. Every single point he illustrated in class (lighting, posing, getting the emotion out of the subject) all require this one essential thing from a photographer:
PRACTICE, PRACTICE & STUDY, PRACTICE & PRACTICE & STUDY & PRACTICE..x10,000,000 times.
The road to master these essential skills was nothing but hard work. He told us that your office job requires you to invest 1040 hours per year: In order to become a self-sufficient full time wedding photographer, we had to put in the same or more amount of hours practicing photography! Well, after learning that, Jeremy & I were freaking out!!!!! What do you mean it’s gonna take 1040 hours in a year to do photography? Are you kidding me? There is no way we will ever gonna give up our full time job!
While in Hong Kong, we learned to use an off-camera wireless flash system with 3 flashes. Little that we know our very first hand-on experience shooting at Scott’s workshop happens at NIGHT time!! OMG, more freaking out!! We’ve NEVER taken a single night time photo before except for putting our cameras on the auto mode. We don’t even own a tripod, no concept of how to use flash. On or off camera flash, never touch a flash before. BAM!!! Next thing I know, we were shooting models on the streets of Hong Kong as well as on moving trolleys in Hong Kong, many of the shots we weren’t even sure were in focus! We still remained fearful of the flash thru the entire workshop.
Photo Credit: Scott Robert Lim
Standing in the shadow of China’s most famous icons, we were able to get access to a secretive spot at the Great Wall where no tourists ever go, and an amazing portion of the great wall where we could all get some really cool pictures for our portfolio. Little did we know we had to take this strenuous forty-five minutes super slanted (90 degree!) height uphill to this very raw portion of the wall. When we began our trek, it was obvious no tourist had ever tread on this path because it was CRAZYYYY difficult P90X physically demanding HIKE!!!!! Once we got up there, it was windy, cold, it even rained a little bit. We shot models with natural light, messed around for a bit and took some group pictures. The view was breathtaking and worth the climb.
Photo Credit: Scott Robert Lim
After investing more than a week with this group of serious wedding photographer students including: Tauran & Anwar from LA, Gurm & Chantal from Canada, Riz from Japan, and Jeremy & I as part of the group, we learned we were the most ‘green’ amongst the bunch. Talking about crushing our confidence! We had no idea what we were doing there and almost felt embarrassed to hand out our flickr link pictures of my dog portfolio business card. However, no one in the group cared who was more established or whatever, or who knew more or less about photography. They too had traveled thousands of miles to China to learn, to be inspired, to discover who they were as a photographer, and to figure out where they want to be.
We learned the principle of living an extraordinary life of being a photographer, the key to that is to SACRIFICE and work extremely hard toward our dreams. Our dream was so ridiculously HUGE, sometimes people would laugh at us or people would think that we were crazy when we told them about our dream.
The white sun vanishes at the mountain-top; the yellow river is swallowed by the current of the sea. Desperately desire to see a thousand miles further, to achieve this so by climbing one more flight of stairs. – Climbing the Crane Tower by Wang Zhihuan, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty. PS. that one more flight of stairs probably means thousands of steps. My words of motivation and encouragement today. Tribute to my complex root, my mother country with many years of history – China.
To be honest, even to this day can we cannot exactly tell you what tricks, tips or secrets in succeeding in photography we learned from attending Scott’s workshop. But what I can tell you is that after returning from China, we couldn’t concentrate on our office job anymore. We kept thinking day & night about photography. It was almost like we had a religious experience in China.
After the World Tour in China Oct 2009, this is how our life changed:
November 2009 – Scott continued to mentor us after the China workshop. (We shot our 1st paid wedding gig!)
Summer 2010 – both of us went part-time with our office jobs, and part time photography. Scary!
August 2010 – Jeremy led way by going full time in photography.
September 2010 – Our first experience entering WPPI’s online competition – we won 6 accolade of excellence! Jeremy did all the retouching.
January 2011 – I finally took the leap an went in full time doing photography as well.
March 2011 – Our first time entering WPPI’s 16×20 photography competition – We won the very first award of excellence and our picture got to be hung next to Tauran & Scott’s award winning prints!
<YOU CAN SKIP reading all these crap and jump—->>
Summer 2011 – Went to Scott’s Paris & Hawaii Photography Workshop and we did whatever it took to shoot our own projects there.
Sept 2011 – Enter WPPI’s online competition and won seven awards, including two first place awards!
December 2011 – Went to Shanghai China and shot this engagement session. We ended up spending some life-changing time in Tianjin volunteering in an orphanage to teach photography & feed a 5 year old little boy everyday for two weeks.
March 2012 – Honored to be the first Asian-American nervous woman to win two Image of the Year awards at WPPI!!!
April 2012 – Published in Cosmopolitan Bride China.
September 2012 – Went to Scott’s Italy Photography Workshop, then shot gigs in Florence, Italy. Entered WPPI’s online competition and won three first place awards, one 2nd place and one third place.
November 2012 – Named as the one of the Top 30 Rising Stars of Wedding Photographer in America by RangeFinder Magazine.
March 2013 – Honored to win the Grand Award in Portraiture from WPPI’s International online competition and First Place in 16×20 Print Competition in the Fashion Photography category.
April 2013 – Shot an overwhelming number of sessions in Paris, Florence, Vienna. More than we could barely handle in 3 weeks!
May 2013 – Published on cover of the RangeFinder Magazine along with a featured article.
June 2013 – Published on Vanity Fair Magazine. Received WPPI’s APM (Accolade of Photographic Mastery), and AOPA (Accolade of Outstanding Photographic Achievement).
<<—–to HERE!! YOU can pick up the reading here!! >
As we examine the timeline of our photography career, every step of the way, Scott was always there to be the TIGER Mom to coach us. Ever since the first time we’ve experienced what it was like to live, breath, sleep about wedding photography way back in October in 2009. That China workshop where Scott didn’t teach us any shortcuts or tricks to success, but he left us the burden to work EXTREMELY HARD to reach this ridiculously huge dream of impossible.
And remember I told you that neither Jeremy & I knew how to use flash in 2009? Now, Off-Camera Flash has become essential gear we use in every single photo session.
The Scott Robert Student community is a group of students who are going thru the similar process, some are established & some are green like us, a community where we can share our burdens, get support, Q&A and keep each other accountable to excel in perfecting the craft of wedding photography. Until this day, we still think our decision to come to Scott’s China workshop in 2009 was such a stupid thing we did to end our stable cubicle jobs but a wise one to kick start our journey – a new fulfilling career as an international wedding & portrait photographer.
In conclusion, if you are a photographer and reading this and you have a burning desire to take your photography business & craft to the next level, I encourage you to find a mentor or come join us with Scott, Tauran, Jeremy & myself for our 2013’s EPIC China Photography Workshop. China is such a special place for us and we highly encourage you to take large risk to embarks on this journey of endless inspiration, a process of self-discovery, a way of life to experience what is like to live, breath and sleep as an international portrait & wedding photographer. Stop talking about wanting to shoot international assignments, allow us to help you to become one.
about jeza photography
jeremy and zabrina are wedding & fashion photographers in san francisco, california. they thrive to produce excellence in imagery pleasing the clients as well as marking a superior industry standard and named as one of the 30 rising stars of wedding photography in america by the rangefinder magazine, november 2012 issue. they are six times 1st place winners of wedding portraits and professional international (wppi) from 2011 – 2013. in 2012 & 2013, they are the 1st asian american photographer who has won two international image of the year awards, and an grand award from international portraiture from wppi against thousands of photographers’ entries around the world. they’ve also been published in many publications including vanity fair, cosmopolitan bride china, elle wedding hong kong, stuff magazine, dc photo hong kong, vogue italia, rangefinder & international master photographer vol 1 and many more.
click here to watch jeza photography 2012 year in review from on vimeo.
follow our travel schedule to book us for your next destination pre-wedding or engagement session
our 2013 travel schedule:
{contact for booking photoshoot now, email us contact[at]jezaphoto[dot]com }
China Photography Workshop: august 23-30th, guang zhou & hong kong – reserve now
2013 Fall Season European Photo shoot – Contact to Reseve now:
September 24 – 28 Paris: FULL
October 4th- 5th: Italy: Florence or Venice (1 slot available)
October 6th – 12th: Florence, Prague, Paris: FULL
October 14th – 18th: Paris & France (3 slots available)
October 20th – 21st: Prague (1 slot available)
October 23th – 24th: Prague FULL
||our story|| awards|| international || weddings||facebook || twitter||weibo 微博||Instagram||
Jeremy + Zabrina = amazing! For real, I am so proud of you two.