An Evening with Damien Lovegrove

Last year, in May 2018, I had the honour of hosting an evening talk and demo with Damien Lovegrove, one of my primary sources of lighting information and a good friend. The event sold out in a couple of days and those of you who attended were super excited. Many of you wanted more!

Today, I’m happy to announce that Damien’s love for Belgium (and our fine beers) has led him to cross the canal once more for a new ‘Evening with Damien Lovegrove’ on Tuesday, December 10. The general structure of the session will be similar to last year’s (never change a winning theme), but all the images as will be the accompanying lecture, in which Damien will share his thoughts on what makes good portrait photos. The live shoot demo will be even more practically oriented than last year’s: Damien will use a couple of 350 € flashes to create an entire marketing campaign (cd cover, poster, booklet, …) in one hour for an aspiring singer/songwriter’s new album release. So, whether you were already present last year or not, this is one evening of photographic inspiration you don’t want to miss! Come and watch how one of the greatest contemporary portrait photographers approaches a shoot under time pressure using very affordable lighting gear. The evening will be wrapped up with a demo of Damien’s Lightroom ‘Speed’ Editing, in which he edits his images just as fast as he shoots them. It typically only takes him about one minute per image.

Tuesday, Dec 10, 2019, 7.30 PM - 10.30 PM  | Ghent (Belgium)

This is just a glimpse of the images that Damien will talk about in the first part of the evening session. All these images were made over the course of the last 15 months.

What's the connection between a flight to England ten years ago and the evening session 'An Evening with Damien Lovegrove'?

On July 16th, 2008, I was on a plane headed for Bristol (UK). I had just lost my job in the financial sector and as I had had it with number-crunching, I wanted to 'try and do something with photograpy for a living'. Up until then, that had just been a hobby, a welcome artistic antidote in a world dominated by numbers. I had booked a two-day workshop with Damien Lovegrove, who back then was already doing some very impressive stuff with flash and available light.

Fast forward ten years... I've written a couple of books about flash photography and I teach workshops myself, but that one workshop with Damien has always stayed with me for several reasons. First of all because it was my first serious attempt at working with hotshoe flashes outside of a studio and working with a professional model (who would later grace the cover of my Lightroom book). But mainly, because I remember Damien's professionalism and his catchy enthusiasm. The man is like the human version of a six-pack of Red Bull!

What I particularly like about Damien’s workflow is how he manages to combine speed with gorgeous output. In the time most of us have set up our lights, Damien’s already got a couple of great shots in the bag. On Tuesday, December 10, you will see be able to see for yourself how Damien pulls off creating an entire promo shoot for an aspiring female singer/songwriter in one hour.

This three hour evening session comprises three main sections:

1. The Portraitist - lecture
   In this fast paced presentation Damien shares his thought provoking philosophy and strategies for capturing photographs of people. Hold on tight for 75 minutes of photography gold from one of the worlds most inspiring portrait photographers of our generation. He will talk about those elements that are, more than any camera brand or light setup, the most important components of good portrait photography: building connection, having a good narrative, finding and seeing light, composition, movement, deciding on colour versus monochrome, the importance of whites and highlights, developing your own style, including contrast and conflict and much more.

2. Live Shooting demo
   Watch Damien build a series of portraits of an aspiring musician using a 3 head budget flash lighting system that can be bought for under €1000. In this session Damien will shoot a set of pictures for the artist’s latest album including the cover, booklet shots and a poster shot to promote their live tour. Damien’s flash kit doesn’t have modelling lights so he will share his pre visualisation of each set up. Of course this is a creative journey where just about anything can happen and it usually does.

3. Live Image Editing Demo
   In the last part, Damien will briefly show us his Lightroom workflow. Briefly, because he already gets the look 95 percent right in-camera. Yet, he has a number of handy tips in store for us, amongst others about prepping a file for printing.

Things you'll learn during this evening session:

• Working with hard and soft light: what to choose when.

• From soft to dramatic: how to create different looks with the same base material.

• How to get great images 'straight-out-of-camera' so you can limit your postprocessing.

• Quick Lightroom fixes: why Damien spends no longer than one minute per image in postproduction.

• How to direct your model for maximum impact.

• Why good lighting material doesn't have to cost a fortune.

• And of course plenty of tips, tricks and advice that you may expect from someone with over thirty years of photographic experience and a background as a BBC lighting director.

Practicalities, price and location

• This evening course and live demo photoshoot is held on Tuesday evening, December 10 in the ‘Beatrice’ meeting room in Bedrijvencentrum De Punt, Kerkstraat 108, 9050 Gentbrugge near Ghent (Belgium)

• Coffee, tea and water will be provided. At the end of the evening, Damien will gladly buy you a Stella, his favourite beer when he's in Belgium. If you think Stella tastes like Heineken, there will be sparkling wine, too!

• There are two types of tickets available: the Standard Edition ticket (regular price € 79, early bird price € 59 until November 25) buys you access to the evening, but the best value for money undoubtedly is the Ultimate Edition ticket (regular price € 119, early bird price € 89): in addition to access to the event, this ticket also covers:

  • Damien’s Illumination 1 & Illumination 2 video tutorials: hours of extra inspiration to watch and learn long after the actual event has passed. Total value of 58 €

  • My Dutch Flash! Flitsfotografie op locatie book (valued at € 32,95 - if you don't speak Dutch, you'll receive the English eBook version);

  • A brand new set of 10 Color Grading Creative Profiles for Lightroom Classic, valued at € 19,95

• By themselves, these extras are worth more than the Ultimate Edition ticket price itself!

For only € 30 extra, the Ultimate ticket gives you over € 100 worth of bonuses: Damien's critically acclaimed Illumination 1 and 2 tutorials, a hard copy of the second edition of my book Flash! and a copy of a new set of Lightroom Creative Profiles. If you already have the Flash! book, you can swap it out for my Lightroom book or for a copy of my ‘Tussen Licht & Lightroom, Vol. 01’ video tutorial.

A selection of Damien’s recent black and white work. Damien processes his black and whites – very much like his color images – at an average speed of one minute per image! If you wonder why Damien gets to photograph so much: the trick is he does not waste much time in postproduction :-)

Tickets:

Credit Card payments are preferred. In order to book your spot(s), click on the Add To Cart button for the ticket type of your choice below. An icon of a shopping cart will appear in the top right corner of your browser. Click on that and follow the rest of the payment procedure. If you need an invoice, you can enter your details on the form. Although we encourage Credit Card payments, you can also pay by bank transfer. Just shoot us an email and we'll contact you with payment details.

Included in the Ultimate Edition ticket: a copy of Damien’s Illumination 1 and Illumination 2 videos. Watch the trailers below.

Together, these two videos offer 4 hours of training, yours to watch when you want, where you want.

Also included in the Ultimate Edition ticket: a hard copy of my book ‘Flash! Flitsfotografie op locatie’

FAQ's

Should I bring a camera or laptop?

• This is a lecture/course, it's not a workshop. As such, you don't need to bring your camera. You may want to bring a laptop or tablet to take notes. However, please note that the meeting room will have chairs only and you won't be able to charge your laptop battery. Alternatively, bring a good old-fashioned notebook and pen! If you buy the Ultimate Edition ticket, you'll have all the notes you need by means of Damien's 2+ hour Illumination 1 and 2 video tutorials and my 260 page Flash! book.

Why should I attend this course?

• There are few people who can play with and sculpt light like Damien Lovegrove. His experience as a lighting director at the BBC obviously is no stranger to this. Damien also loves to experiment and evolve. Hard light and soft light, flash and continuous light, close-ups but also 'figures in a landscape': he masters it all. But probably the biggest reason to participate in this course is that Damien's legendary enthusiasm will give you a boost to go out and try this flash thing on your own. The techniques you'll learn during this session can be applied to any genre of photography: wedding, kids, corporate portraits and so on.

Terms and Conditions:

• Tickets are non-refundable. If you cannot make it to the event, you can always choose to let someone else take your place. Please inform us of the name of the new participant.

• MoreThanwords/Piet Van den Eynde reserves the right to cancel the course in case of insufficient participants or when the course leader (Damien Lovegrove) is unable to attend the course because of illness, accident or delay. In case of such a cancellation, participants will receive a full refund of the course price they paid. The refund is limited to the price the attendant paid to participate at the course and does not include any extra costs the participant may have incurred (such as, but not limited to: travel and hotel expenses).

With kind cooperation of: