The Brewery Arts Complex

I had the opportunity to visit the studio of photographer Rob Greer today.  His studio and his home are located in the Brewery Art Colony in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. You can see the colony as you drive North on the 5 freeway between the 10 Connector and the 110 Connector.  You will know it's the Brewery when you see a huge smokestack  piercing the skyline.

Learn more about the Brewery  or attend the Fall Artwalk October 24th or 25th 11am - 6pm.

Rob was a fantastic speaker,  He shared lots of information about his start in this business,
his work style and ethic.  

I had a bit of conflict when deciding where to write this post.   On this blog that is about me and my work - or on my Photo School New Blog since I went to the studio with my Cypress College Wedding Photography Class.  I chose this blog because there were a couple of  insights that I hope can begin to inform my own work.

One:  " Show your BEST Stuff".   This is something I have heard over and over again.  Jerry Burchfield  said it this way:  "If you have 10 show 5".  This is so tough for me.   I always fall in love with the images I create and I find it extraordinarily difficult to throw anything into the trash.  As a result I have thousands of images cluttering up my hard drive space and prints spilling out of the bedroom closets and hidden under or behind all our casement furniture.

Rob Greer, on the other hand, told us he goes through a process to select images for his own portfolios. He starts by asking friends and then respected photographers to review the 20 or so images he has chosen and asks them to identify their least favorite two or three.  I guess I could go to a portfolio review and pay to have my work reviewed by other professionals but I could probably make a pretty substantial down payment on a piece of "good glass" for the fee some of these critiques charge.  Rob suggested that new photographers get together and critique their own work, so I think I'll try to come up with a plan to organize a portfolio critique on campus.

(Do I think the two images I chose for this post are the best I captured today?  No....  Then why did
I post these - one seemed to document the space (see that smoke stack) and the other was a great detail. Maybe I will go through the files, find the best of the bunch, optimize one or two and replace these documentary images...... maybe)

Another point that resonated with me was  Rob's admonishment to be sure our  insurance is updated and that it cover equipment, liability and "errors and omissions".   I probably don't need errors and omissions yet, but I really should begin to research liability coverage and update my scheduled equipment since I bought the new Pocket Wizards this week.

I should check out membership in PPA and look at their insurance plans.