I had a dangerous weekend

Cue the James Bond Music.

This is not Vermont, in case anyone was wondering.  (I may return to Vermont photos later.)

This is Preston Castle in Ione, CA. I attended another one of those wonderful Mark Behrens Portrait Workshops over the weekend.  Beautiful models and fabulous location. Preston Castle is an abandoned Home for Wayward Boys owned by the state of California from 1893 until 1964, when it was abandoned for a more modern juvenile detention center (located next door to the castle.)  The castle fell into terrible disrepair, but has recently been marked for restoration.  The light in the castle was provided by the large windows and a few electric lights here and there.  Tripods were a necessity, for the most part.

I’ve been on a photographic outing to Preston Castle before with my camera club (El Dorado Camera Club.)  However, the only people involved were the other photographers and generally photographers don’t like to be photographed (a little odd, but it’s the way it is.) The only way to catch most photographers in a photo is to wait until they are busy concentrating on something and then, quick, take their picture. (We had about 40 photographers at this weekend’s shoot so it pretty much looked like this all over the castle.

This workshop was truly exciting because I love to photograph people in interesting places.  And there were interesting people and interesting places aplenty.  Like these 1940’s style pin up models.

And this very striking Russian model (who is the same model as the James Bond girl above).

There were also these guys who were perched on the roof of the castle and were apparently part of the greeting party.  I bet this place is really creepy on Halloween.

Here’s a very small photo of the castle that I took a couple of months ago when I was with my camera club.  Pretty cool, huh?

I may have some more photos of this workshop to put up tomorrow, or I may return to Vermont photos…