Several people have asked me recently “Mike, what exactly is Project52?”. Simply put, it is a 52 week project packed full of fun and challenging photography assignments that are designed to prepare an emerging photographer to go pro. This project is the brain child of Arizona photographer and lighting workshop teacher Don Giannatti.
I originally stumbled across Don when I began to learning about small camera flash, and came across his Lighting Essentials website. Don has a straight forward teaching and writing style that just seems to work for me. Simple, to the point, and no BS. I learned a lot from his tutorials, and enjoy the style of his work immensely.
Around the first of the year Don posted on the Lighting Essentials blog that he was starting up something called Project52. This sounded amazing, but I have no plan to go pro. For me photography is a hobby, a passion, a creative outlet and so much more, but not a career plan. Would this be right for me? Yes, and I will tell you why – I want to be better, I want to be able to achieve professional quality results, and if this will help me get there, then this is absolutely the right thing for me! So what does it cost to be a part of this project? Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, the donut. Yup, Don is doing this at no charge! A well known photographer that gets paid well to teach workshops wants to teach me something for nothing? Count me in!!!
So how does Project52 work? Each Monday Don posts an assignment for us on the Project52 web site. Sometimes the assignment is very specific, just like when you are working for a client that has a very specific need. Other times the assignment is more conceptual, and it is up to the photographer to come up with an image that meets that concept. The participants are given 2 weeks to complete the assignment, and post the results to the appropriate project thread in the Lighting Essentials group on Flickr.
Each week there is a one hour live chat sessions that is used to discuss our progress, review our work and ask questions. Don provides feedback on our assignments, tells us what we did right, and just as important points out what you could do to improve. Don’t be afraid of this part – feedback is a normal part of learning, and Don does it in a kind way. These sessions are scheduled twice a week, and if you can’t make it to one of the sessions Don has a recording of the session posted on the Project52 web site.
Additional video chats are offered on a wide variety of topics. We did a 60 minute behind the scene session with Don while he did a model shoot, to see how he builds the lighting for an image. Don allowed us to ask questions of himself and the model. Recently, it was a one hour Q&A sessions with Syl Arena, author of the “Speedliter’s Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites” (if you do not have this book yet, buy it now – 400+ pages about lighting, and it is not just for Canon shooters. Best book I have read on lighting. Ever. Period.Seriously). Our next scheduled video chat is a 2 hour studio session on tabletop/still life photography.
Sound interesting? Sound like an awesome deal? If you answer “Yes”, or even “Maybe” to either of these questions then you owe it yourself to look into this project. It is NOT too late to get started, you can join in at any time and start learning. It will change your photography for the better, and you won’t be disappointed!