It’s scary just how far back in my career my friendship with Bambi actually goes – we met in the early 90’s when Bambi won one of the album awards at a reception where I was the MC.  Then our salesman in the San Francisco area wanted me to meet one of his favorite Hasselblad shooters, Bambi Cantrell.  Visiting her home studio and packing a major attitude, after all “a California girl named Bambi working out of her home” created the perfect feeding frenzy for my east coast mentality….

“So, is Bambi your real name?” I asked.  She got quiet and the room temperature dropped about twenty degrees. “Okay, let me understand this – so you’re an adult with a name like Skip.  So where are Wally and the Beav?  Is Skip your real name?”   That set off the friendship and absolutely earned my instant respect.  Her three books that we wrote together, The Art of Wedding Photography, The Art of Digital Wedding Photography and The Art of People Photography have all been best sellers in the professional photographic market.

But it’s not her incredibly diverse skill set that makes Bambi so amazing, it’s her loyalty to her friends and the manufacturers who support, or maybe I should say, fight over her, combined with her constant quest to push the edge of the technical envelope.  She’s always trying something new.

Recently there was a discussion on one of the forums about use of the word “rockstar” for photographers.  Well, Bambi Cantrell is a rockstar and one of only a handful of photographers who can pack the biggest ballroom at any convention, standing room only and not one person will leave before she’s done.

 

I had the wonderful opportunity of teaching last week at the Julia Dean Photographic Workshops in Venice Beach, California.  The school provided me with three wonderful assistants, one of which was Elizabeth Huston.   Elizabeth is a great example of what the photography world is really all about.   Put creativity and artistry together and blend in a ton of incredible humility and you have Elizabeth.  She sat each day in the course, taking notes, asking questions, and when needed became my “schlepper.” 

What I didn’t know until the end of the week was this quiet woman is an amazing photographic artist.  An artist with an amazing vision, and way of capturing uniquely the world around us in a very abstract way.  Her work will be soon be featured in one of the prestigious art galleries in Los Angeles.  I just had to share some of the images with everybody. 

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I found her images creative, inspiring and the artwork made me see the world of photography in a whole new light.  I am so in love with the creativity the world of digital imaging has endowed us with!  Each day, I am inspired by artists and photographers alike, and marvel at the way in which the two worlds have collided.

And one more great lesson I learned working with Elizabeth.  So often we draw the wrong assumptions about people we meet.   I had assumed, because Elizabeth was assigned to assist me, her skill level was probably junior to mine.  How wrong I was and how wonderful to have an experience to expand my horizons and find myself becoming her student!