March 5th 2011 was the last day of the complete Scott Robert Mentorship series at Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland CA.

Bittersweet, even though we started almost a year ago with almost everyone, the day of our graduation was just the beginning of everyone’s journey.

In April 2010, I started Scott Robert Lim’s Workshops.  I didn’t know anything about the technicals, lighting, posing, and especially off camera flash.  Before starting workshops, I took more of a journalistic approach and shot when my clients moved themselves.  With my fist formal training with lighting, posing, and WHY everything happens, I was excited and wanted more.

I met some of the coolest people in our workshop, including Darrell Lee (www.darrellphotography.com).  Darrell had been shooting for longer, but was pretty cool.  We now have a collection of inside jokes.

And then there was us.

Everything that happened in between April 2010 and now has been a journey.  I continued my San Francisco workshops, took the next big step to go to NYC for a part of Scott’s World Tour in September, and then without a doubt went to China in October.  For the time that I’ve known Scott, he has been an incredible mentor.  He is the one that inspires us every single time and keeps us going.  This path can be very frustrating at times, and it will want you to give up.  Many times I’ve held up a wall in front of my feelings and haven’t let my guard down.  Understanding who I am and breaking down the walls to get to my real personality is tough.  Several people who I hold dear in my life, like Scott, know how to get to my real core – and from that, I learned that I need to express it more.

So letting a bit of fun, loving, and my silly personality will help me draw more emotion from my imagery.  So if I’m a little silly or weird, know that I like you guys!

I was also happy to see the whole family grow so far.  It dawned on me that this may be the last time we see each other all together!  I want the best for each and every one of you, and hope that all of you will soar.

So after our image critique, we all graduated.  Yay!

And then we went shooting.  (image above taken by Henry Sun)

Here are my images from our final SR workshop!

Jackie:

Josh:

Phoebe: