On April 25th, I woke up, packed up my camera gear, and headed down I-49 towards Alexiandria, LA. I was headed toward Loyd Hall Plantation where I was going to spend my day at a photography workshop learning from two very talented photographers! The workshop was put on by Marc Eric and Brandon O’Neal, and, man, did I ever have a great day!  Unfortunately, poor Nicole had to stay behind and work, but she was sweet enough to let me go by myself! (But she grilled me with questions the next several days asking what I learned!)

So, after a nice drive through Louisiana, I pulled up to Loyd Hall and walked right up to the front door…which I couldn’t open!  Feeling a bit silly that I couldn’t open the door, I started to walk around back when I was greeted by Mark Eric.  Immediately, I was put into a group with the job of grabbing shoe shots!  After that, we all gathered and the learning started!  The workshop was all about lighting, so each session of the day focused on different lighting conditions.  First up was window lighting!

(Pictured above is the lovely Amy, one of Brandon O’Neal’s brides! She was super sweet, and, of course, a stunning model!)

Over the next few set-ups, we worked with off camera flash and natural light.


This next image is a favorite from the day!

We spent most of the afternoon inside working with flash and natural light before heading back outside for another session with our second model of the day, Amanda!

Mark and Brandon both brough lots of fun lighting equipment, and one of my favorite things was the beauty dish! I caught this next image while Brandon was using the beauty dish and timed the shot perfectly!

Then as the sun was setting we played with combining natural light and flash to get some stunning images! This next series includes some of my favorite pictures ever!



And I’ll end this post with my last image from the workshop!

It was great to spend the day with a fun group of photographers just talking, sharing, and learning! Thanks again to Mark Eric and Brandon O’Neal for putting this workshop on and for letting me play with some of your super cool equipment! We’re looking forward to implementing off camera lighting into our own photography work! Nicole and I are super excited about the possible Oak Alley workshop, so make sure to save us two spots!

Blogstalkers, check back Thursday when we share images from this past Sunday’s family session!