Alain Briot
Personal Vision Mastery
Workshop on DVD
(also available on USB flash card)
The Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD is similar to attending my 2 days Personal Vision Mastery Seminar except that you don't need to travel and you can study the materials anywhere, as many times as you want.
A - Why Personal Vision is Important
The Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD is the 7th Mastery Workshop on DVD. It is also the only one that focuses on Visionary Skills.
Vision is important because it is at the origin of your work. Everything starts there because Vision is what guides your work. When you create fine art photographs everything you use is placed at the service of your vision. This includes your choice of location, the way you compose your image, which camera you use, the software you use, etc. All those, and more, are placed at the service of making your vision a reality.
In fine art photography, location, composition, gear, software, techniques etc. are not an end in themselves. They are only the means to an end. They are tools whose role is to create images that will show your vision to your audience.
Obviously this is easier said than done. The explanation is simple but its implementation is challenging. If expressing Vision was easy, everyone would do it. The reality is that few people do it. While today everyone believes they are photographers, hardly any of these 'photographers' have a vision for their work. While they can tell you the exact difference between camera X and camera Z and between software A and software B, they are unable to describe a vision for their work.
Gear, technique and software are important. To say that they are not would not only be disingenuous, it would be an outright lie. We need them because photography is by nature a technical medium. We also need them because practicing any artistic medium, be it photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, music, or other, means using gear and techniques.
However, photography today has become over-focused on gear and technique. Personal Vision is not talked about and neither is Personal Style, the focus of my previous Mastery Workshop on DVD: the Personal Style Master Class Workshop on DVD. These are ignored even though they are among the most important aspects of fine art photography. They are ignored not because they are not important, but because they got lost in the incessant stream of announcements for new cameras, new gear and new software.
1 - Style without vision is possible
You may ask: what is the difference between personal style and vision? The difference is significant: style are the means through which you share your vision with your audience. As such it is technique based. In other words, personal style is demonstrated through the use of specific techniques.
Because of this you can have a personal style without having a personal vision for your work. Many photographers do that. They learn a technique, master it, and that technique becomes their style. However, just like I said before, when asked what is their vision for their work, they don't know what to say.
2 - But vision without style is impossible
However you cannot have a vision without a style. This is because your vision is invisible. It is known only to you and it resides in your mind. In order to show your vision, you need to create photographs that embody this vision.
This means that you need a style to express your vision. If you already have a personal style you are all set and the Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD is all you need. If you do not have a personal style consider getting both the Personal Vision and the Personal Style Workshops. Together they will teach you both parts of this process: finding your vision and finding a style to express it. However, they are two separate courses that are meant to work as stand-alone tutorials. This means you can study them independently of each other.
3 - You need to set yourself apart
While few photographers have a personal style, even fewer have a personal vision. Having a personal vision has become something so uncommon that being able to explain your vision in a personal way, provided you have one, immediately sets you apart from all other photographers.
Quite simply it makes you stand out and it makes your work unique. In a world where everyone is competing for attention, it makes people interested in your work not because it is technically good, but because it is emotionally interesting and unique. There are a lot of technically good photographers out there, but most of their work is dry and unable to hold your attention for more than a few minutes or seconds. You see it, you like it, and you forget it.
Why do you forget it? Simply because there is no vision behind this work. All there is are techniques and gear. While these photographers spend lots of money buying the best gear they can afford and spend countless hours learning how to master the craft, they never give any thought to their vision. It's like learning how to bake bread, buying an oven, even opening a bakery, while never asking yourself why you want to do all of that and being unable to explain why when asked.
4 - Improving gear and software is not enough
I am asked frequently what I think of camera A or B, or if I plan to upgrade from XX megapixels to XXX megapixels. I used to compare and I do upgrade on occasion, but I do so less and less. In fact, over the past three years I only purchased one camera and the only software upgrade I made has been limited to updating the software I have been using for years.
The reason for this approach is simple. I believe that at this stage in the development of digital photography, and of my career, improvements to my work will come from improving my vision, not improving my gear or software.
This is why I decided to create the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD. I could just as easily have created another Lightroom and Photoshop tutorial. But doing so would first have been redundant because this information is already available in the Adjustment Layers Mastery Workshop on DVD. Second, it would not have helped you with vision because vision is not acquired by learning techniques or buying new gear and software.
5 - Acquiring vision
The Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD contains all the information that I have been researching on the subject of vision for the past two years. The goal of this research was to find out what is Personal Vision and how one acquires it. The result of this research is featured in 18 separate sections each featuring anywhere from 2 to 55 subsections. Here is the table of contents:
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Click on the icon above to open the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD
table of contents in eBook / PDF format
The goal of the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop is to give you all the information and the tools you need to find, refine and express your vision. This goal is achieved through a series of tutorials organized in a progressive and logical manner. It starts with a description of what Personal Vision is, continues by providing you with several tests you can perform to find out if you have a personal vision or not, and follows up with additional tests to help you define your vision based on your experience and your personality.
All this would be useless without examples of how vision is demonstrated through photographs. To show you this I recorded 34 Examples of Vision. In these examples I describe what is my vision for 34 different photographs and I explain in detail how I expressed this vision when I created each photograph, both in the field and in the studio.
In the Personal Style Master Class Workshop on DVD, the central concept is the creation of a Personal Project. In the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop the central concept is the creation of a Body of Work. A body of work consists of several projects and covers your entire career. Creating a body of work is therefore a major achievement. So much so that it represents your oeuvre, your legacy, what you want others to know you for and remember you by.
The process of creating your body of work is carefully detailed in the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop. This detailed presentation is followed by extensive examples using my own body of work. Each example is accompanied by a commentary that explains why each piece of my body of work is important and how it fits into the body of work as a whole.
6 - Your personal story
One of the most important aspects of establishing your Personal Vision is through your Personal Story. Having a personal story, one that tells your journey through photography, sets you apart from the millions of 'photographers' out there. These 'photographers' don't have a vision and they also don't have a story besides buying a camera and setting up a website.
Your story is part of your vision. The two are inter-related and have shaped each other. This may be something you are aware of or not. It doesn't matter. On the Personal Vision DVD I teach you how to put together your story, how to write it and how to present it so that it makes sense to others and demonstrates your vision. I also give you my own story as an example, through 28 illustrated vignettes. This document is one of the most important aspects of your Personal Vision.
7 - Conclusion
If you do not have a Personal Vision and a Personal Style your photographs will join the multitude of photographs out there and will pretty much be ignored. You will have wasted all that you invested in creating your photographs, including your time, hard work, travels, investments, etc.
If you sell your work and you do not have a Personal Vision and a Personal Style you must sell on the basis of price, because if customers cannot see a difference between your work and the work of other photographers they will buy the lowest priced work.
Eventually, the only thing that truly separates your work from the work of other photographers is your Vision. The question then becomes: what is Personal Vision and how do I acquire one? Those two questions are the questions I set to answer and teach you in this tutorial: the Alain Briot Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD.
B - Contents of the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD
1 - You get over 240 pdf files in eBook format for a total of over 2000 pages teaching you how to find and develop your Personal Vision
These include over 100 examples of vision and of body of work contents. Below is an sampler of the ebook contents featured on the Personal Vision Mastery DVD.
Click on the icon to see an ebook Sampler from the Personal Vision Mastery DVD
2 - You get over 13 hours of audio recordings in which I explain the process of developing a personal Vision, building a body of work and all the other aspects of personal vision (18 sections with multiple sub-sections). Below is a sampler of the audio content featured on the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop:
Click on the icon to listen to an audio presentation
about the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD
The audio, ebooks, video, written and
other materials featured on the DVD are carefully organized in a step by step fashion to make studying easy. You can complete each step at your leisure and move around from step to step as you please. You can also return to a previous step, or move to a later step, at your leisure.
3 - You receive a signed Fine Art Companion Print
A matted and signed Fine Art Companion Print of Monument Valley Sunset, one of my favorite recent images, is included in the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD package. The value of this print if purchased separately is $295. This Companion Print is printed, mounted, matted and packaged in the exact same museum presentation as my larger prints.
I include it in this package so you can compare the image quality on screen to that of the actual print. This is necessary because nothing is as beautiful as an actual Fine Art Print. Everything else is a reproduction. This collectible print will also be an addition to your Fine Art collection. This photograph demonstrates my personal vision. Why it demonstrates my vision is explained in a detailed presentation featured on the DVD.
4 - You receive the Page-Antelope Canyon Fine Art Summit Audio CD
This CD features the recording of the presentations I gave at the 2013 Page-Antelope Canyon Fine Art Summit. There are 4 presentations, each one hour long. The handouts that Summit Participants received during the Summit are also included. Listening to these presentations is like being at the summit plus you can listen to them as often as you want, at anytime and anywhere you like. The CD features mp3 files and will play in any CD player. You can also download the mp3 files to any digital audio device (iPod, iPad, mp3 player, phone, etc.).
5 - You receive the book Art and Fear to help you study Personal Vision and the challenges involved in expressing you vision and creating art
Art and Fear, written by Ted Orland and David Bayles, is a classic of photography literature. The book focuses on the challenges of creating art, and this is why I selected it as the companion for the Personal Vision Mastery DVD. This book is the perfect complement to the Personal Vision DVD, and together they give you all the information, the skills and the knowledge you need to discover, explore, express and share your personal vision.
6 - You get Free access to the Personal Vision Mastery Free Updates website for as long as you own the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD
As with all Mastery Workshops on DVD, a free Owners Update Area website is available for the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD. The link and registration for this site will be emailed to you when you order the DVD. Updates are posted when new essays, tutorials, information, etc are added to the DVD and when new materials are added to the updates area.
In this site, you also are invited to ask questions related to the materials on the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD. Answers to your questions are posted on the Personal Vision Mastery DVD updates page. You can also read answers to questions asked by other DVD owners. This provides a rich learning environment where owners can share questions and answers with each other.
Access to the Mastery DVD Updates Website is free for as long as you own the DVD.
7 - You receive a $100 off coupon towards any of our workshops
Your Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD package comes with a $100 off coupon good towards any of our workshops. This coupon carries no expiration date and can be used at any time
The Fine Ar Companion Print, matted and signed on both print and mat,
that ships with the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD.
The value of this print is $295
(see the Prices page)
C - Pricing
The Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD. features the exact same knowledge as my two day Personal Vision Mastery Seminar. To be fair to Seminar Participants, the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD. is priced similarly to the Personal Vision Seminar.
However, there are advantages to studying with the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD instead of coming to the Seminar. First, you do not need to travel and therefore you save on travel expenses, lodging, car rental and other incidental expenses. Second, you can study the material at your own pace instead of having to absorb this immense amount of material in just two days. Third, you can study anywhere and anytime you like, instead of having to fit the seminar in your schedule. Finally, you can refer to the DVD later on, as often as you want, instead of referring to brief seminar notes, or trying to remember what was said.
D - How to order:
Personal Vision Mastery
Workshop on DVD
$995
Free Worldwide Shipping included
An entire Master Class on Personal Vision
with hundreds of audio,
eBook, PDF files,
reference files,
and tutorial recordings.
Plus a
signed and matted Companion Print, the book Art & Fear
and CD recordings of Alain's 2013
Fine Art
Summit Presentations
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You can also order by phone at 1-800-949-7983 in the US and 928-252-2466
internationally,
by mail or email by sending us your name, address phone and credit card number
and by email at alain@beautiful-landscape.com
E - A recap of everything you receive with your Personal Vision Mastery Workshop on DVD order:
1 - Over 13 hours of audio recordings
2 - 240 eBooks for a total of over 2000 pages of content in pdf format focusing on all the aspects of developing a Personal Vision.
3 - Over 100 examples of vision and of body of work contents
4 - The book Art and Fear to help you study vision and art
5 - A signed Fine Art Companion Print
6 - The Page-Antelope Canyon Fine Art Summit Audio CD
7 - Free access to the Personal Vision Mastery Updates website for as long as you own the Vision Mastery DVD
8 - A $100 off coupon towards any of our workshops
F - NEW - USB Flash card delivery option (instead of CD / DVD)
If you do not have a CD/DVD reader in your computer, we can ship the Personal Vision Mastery Workshop and the Summit Presentations on a USB Flash Card instead of on CD and DVD. If you want to take advantage of this option, simply place your order using the link above, then email us at alain@beautiful-landscape.com to let us know that you want your order delivered on a USB Flash Card rather than on CD and DVD. The cost is the same.
G - NEW - Pay in 3 equal installments
We offer the option of paying for your Mastery Workshop(s) in 3 equal installments instead of all at once. The three installments will be placed on your credit card a month apart. The first installment will be applied the day you place your order., the second one a month later and the third two months later. To take advantage of this option simply email alain@beautiful-landscape.com or call us with your credit card, phone number and shipping information. There is no extra cost for this option and your order will ship immediately. If you order several DVDs at once we can also work out a longer payment plan. Just call or email us to discuss this option.
Text and Photographs are copyright © Alain Briot 2015
All rights reserved worldwide
