Workshop Participants
Benjamin Norman is an editorial/commercial photographer and multimedia shooter based in New York City. While finishing his degree in Economic Policy at NYU, he undertook an internship with Vincent Laforet, and has been working for a range of clients ever since. He spends most of his days shooting for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, but has also been sent on assignment for The New York Times Magazine, among others. His work has been recognized by the American Photography, POYi, the NYPH, the NYPPA, and the Hearst Corp.
While he loves following the natural light as it pierces New York City's skyscrapers, Ben is equally at home doing commercial and studio work, portraiture, and working with a variety of multimedia. Currently, Ben is accepting a broad range of assignments while he works on his next major project involving the Healthcare Industry in New York.
Benjamin participated in the November 2010 MediaStorm Storytelling Workshop. He had the following to say about his experience:
I think the most helpful component of the workshop is that it's a product-focused. Yeah you could sit around their conference room for a week tinkering with gear and going back and forth about multimedia shooting strategies and techniques and you'd still learn a lot, but we all know practice, and learning from your own mistakes, makes perfect. And trust me, you're going to make pretty much every mistake in the book during the workshop week.
But because of that pressure to create a piece in seven days, you'll be amazed how quickly the gear issues fade away and how storytelling becomes the main topic of conversation. And this is what makes the workshop, and MediaStorm, so damn good. It's not the latest HDSLR that sucks you in to their work, its the storytelling, and the knowledge and experience you gain working with the best of the best is what'll make those 3am nights worth it.
I think I summed it up best to my friends when they asked me how the workshop went, "It took a few days out of my life, but it added many years to my career.