{Shooters Workshop} Casa Noble, La Cofradía Hacienda | Tequila, Mexico

This past week was nothing short of amazing! I had high hopes for a photography workshop that I won in Tequila, Mexico...and it did not disappoint. I walked away from this experience with new friends, new camera & lighting techniques, and lots of practice speaking Spanish.

We were hosted by Casa Noble at La Cofradía Hacienda in Tequila. We were treated better than VIP's at the hacienda, we were treated like old friends. We got a chance to participate in two tours and tastings of Casa Noble Tequila. We learned all about the history and process of making Tequila. I have a new appreciation and palette for Tequila now, especially for Añejo. The owners and staff at La Cofradía spoiled us and made our stay on the hacienda super enjoyable. Thank you Adan, David, & Pepe...you guys made our trip amazing! The instructors and I each had our own suite, which was basically a private casita. I had the best night of sleep in years on my first night there! It's a little piece of paradise and I highly recommend you visiting one day, if given the opportunity. 

Life Camera Actions was another sponsor of the contest I won. Brett is the owner and creator of the actions for Photoshop. All of the images posted on this blog have been edited with his actions. I love them! And this is coming from someone who doesn't use Photoshop. I typically do almost all of my editing in Lightroom. Brett has made me a fan of Photoshop!

Although I'm pretty stoked about the images I captured, you have to visit the blogs of the three instructors and creators of SHOOTERS. What they do with off camera flash and light trails is just awesome! They are all super talented photographers and genuinely great people.

• Brett Jarnigan
• Danny Cuevas
• Hiram Trillo

A huge thank you to you three! For giving me this opportunity, for your inspiration, for sharing your skills, and for making me laugh like I was 21 again. This experience will go down as a Top 10 in my life!

This workshop was so fantastic, I really thought it would be cool to host the SHOOTERS here in Long Beach. Sooooo, mark your calendars for January 2011. They will be coming here to the LBC!!! Details to follow soon. Now on the photos...

We were lucky enough to have models for our shoot from STHERA Model Agency, so it made for some fantastic shooting. 

This next shot was taken on day two of the workshop. The instructors basically handed us the lighting equipment and told us to go at it. Lucky for me, my model Nancy is married to Hiram and she is the one that usually sets up the lighting when they shoot. We were a great team and had a lot of fun together. I got a chance to model (I'm not sure if you can call it that) for her too. She got some killer shots with the sun setting behind me. I can't wait to see them. Nancy is five months pregnant here. In Spanish, they say "dar la luz" to "give birth". So I thought the light radiating from her belly was kinda fitting...

And here's one last shot captured by Brett of all of us in the barrel room...