Hello there! My name is Brett Jarnagin. I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based out of Shelbyville, IL but I've been lucky enough to photograph weddings from Maui to the Sanibel Islands and everywhere in between. I have a passion for creating "far from traditional" images and immortalizing anyone who steps in front of my camera. I am a really laid back guy and I just like to have fun, play music, and inspire others.
Once winter hits, my life completely shifts gears. I go from a full time photographer to running my other business, Life. Camera. Actions. full time (which explains the lack of blog posts!) For those that aren’t aware, Life. Camera. Actions. is a series of Photoshop actions I created for photographers. In layman’s terms, I created a software that helps photographers edit their photos in less time and get better results. Its been purchased in over 25 countries worldwide.
I launched this company at a tradeshow with about 15,000 photographers back in 2010 and we do 4-7 of these shows a year. We have so much fun that I decided to document the trip (with the help of my friend, Jake) to give a behind the scenes look at what it is like to be an exhibitor at a tradeshow. What we ended up with is much more entertaining! This was our first time in New Orleans and we definitely loved it. I’d tell you all about it but the video sums it up perfectly.
Let the video load halfway before starting it and be sure to watch it through to the end or you’ll miss the best part!
You may even want to click the blog title above so it opens in a new page. That way all the images loading won’t slow down the video.
Last month I got to take one of my favorite trips of the year. We (SHOOTERS) are sponsored by Casa Noble Tequila so we have made an annual trip down to their hacienda in Tequila, Mexico to put on a workshop (and also kick back and relax!) This time was really great for me for 2 reasons. 1. My Spanish has gotten 10 times better since last year and 2. I got to celebrate my birthday down there. If you are going to celebrate a birthday, doing so at a tequila hacienda is the way to go
Here is a shot I took of my buddy Raul the day before the workshop started. He’s a rep for Casa Noble and a pretty cool dude all around. This is probably the most sophisticated tequila sipping picture ever!
The workshop was great. I didn’t take a whole of images during the workshop this time around. I’ve done so many workshops in the past 3 months I didn’t really care if I got “the shot” and was more interested in making sure the students got some killer images to show off. So here are a handful of pics I did take from the workshop itself.
After the workshop we threw a celebration party and as you can imagine, it got pretty crazy. As has become tradition, I put on a little mini concert.
What happens when you mix a handful of awesome photographers and some incredible tequila? Well… this
Me jumping off things is also a tradition.
The next day (my birthday) we headed into Guadalajara. We were with a friend from Guadalajara (also named Raul) and he had a guitar. Panhandling in another country has been on my bucket list for awhile now so I kind of stole his guitar (sorry Raul!) and hit the streets. We had a good time. I’d really like to do it more. Playing on the street for strangers is pretty fun, especially when 95% of them have no idea what the words you are singing mean. These were taken by my fellow SHOOTER, Hiram Trillo. Thanks bro!
And here is one of me because I haven’t taken or posted a self portrait in a long time.
Life has been CRAZY for the past few months! As soon as I finished the Flashfire Workshops Tour Casey and I took the looooong trip down to Argentina for a couple of weeks. SHOOTERS (which is comprised of myself, Hiram Trillo, and Danny Cuevas) was asked to come down there and put on workshops in Rosario and Cordoba. I really had no idea what to expect since I’ve never been to Argentina, don’t know anyone who has ever gone, and didn’t know anybody in the country but the incredible hospitality of our hosts and the people of Argentina was abundantly clear as soon as we arrived.
(Side note: Our hosts picked us up from the airport and nobody had informed me that in Argentina guys and girls alike greet you with a kiss on the cheek. So here I am trying to think of what to say in Spanish as I reach out my hand for a handshake when I’m suddenly pulled into a hug and a kiss on the cheek from 4 dudes in a row, haha.)
They drove us 4 ours to our cabana in Funes where we would be staying. We arrived there at about 2 p.m. and they had a FEAST prepared for us! We quickly realized that in Argentina there are 3 major food groups. Meat, bread, and wine! These people eat like lions and drink like fish, haha. The food was one of our favorite things on the trip.
After lunch some of the attendees for the workshop started to pour in. I was blown away that people had driven 20 hours to come learn from us!
We spent a day relaxing and getting settled in and the following day was the day of the workshop. I have another funny side note to share here. In Argentina most people drive very little cars. As we road to the workshop, I was crammed in the back. We pulled up to the location and all the students were standing outside waiting for us to arrive. Hiram got out of the front and I was trying to get out of the back. The car was really small so I grabbed ahold of the door frame to pull myself out. As soon as I did that Hiram slammed the door and smashed my hand. My hand was stuck and my fingers were sticking out of the car while the rest of my hand was on the inside! Of course, right when that happened I shouted “@*&#!” (use your imagination) at the top of my lungs… right in front of all of our students. They had no idea what was going on and I don’t think they saw what happened to my hand. They probably just thought “man, this gringo is crazy! He’s either a psycho or really ready to do this workshop!” I told Hiram to make sure he explained what happened… he didn’t. My first impression to these people was screaming the F word at the top of my lungs. Nobody seemed to mind though.
We had about 70 people for our first workshop. I was blown away at the reception we got. I never thought I’d travel over 5,000 miles and have fans. And not just like “oh I’m your fan on Facebook” – I’m talking about fans that want autographs and pictures! That was pretty crazy. Somehow I even got tricked into performing one of my original songs.
(at the beginning they said to play something they know so I sang La Cucaracha. I also tried to introduce the song in Spanish which failed. I managed to sneak a little Spanish chiste into the lyrics of the chorus although it didn’t work out as well as I would have liked. It is very difficult to play guitar, sing in English, and think in Spanish all at the same time.)
(To my friends in Argentina – you suck at clapping and keeping a beat! Trollos!)
Here is another video that our friend Gaston Memoli of Primer Piso Producciones made for us! Thanks so much Gaston! The very end of me is totally out of context and really funny. They kept trying to get me to say something in Spanish and the only way I could say it is with a gay lisp. Luckily that was caught on film, haha.
The workshop in Rosario was great and there were so many fun and energetic people. I really had a blast teaching and hanging out with everyone. Here are a few images from that workshop!
I find this image rather hilarious. This is photojournalism at its finest, haha.
Remember how I said Argentinians could drink like fish? Here is proof. We had a cerveza break during the workshop, haha!
Our students from Rosario!
The day after the workshop my friend Fabio took me out shooting guns. This guy might be my favorite character from Argentina. He spoke some English and I spoke some Spanish and the language barrier made it interesting. We actually taught each other a lot, though. A little about Fabio – he is happily divorced, he has a pretty sweet bachelor pad (he even has 2 arcade games in his living room), he’s a pilot, a gun instructor, an amazing cook, and an all around fun guy to hang out with. I’d best describe him as “a wild stallion.” He mentioned that he was a gun instructor and I told him that I actually shoot quite a bit. He told me he had silencers, grenades, and all this other crazy stuff so I told him that he was going to have to take me shooting (much to the chagrin of my wife, haha.) At that point he took me to the back of his house, pulled out a gun, put a supressor (silencer for those of you who don’t know what that is) and then put it in his pocket. He lead me outside and he just fired it into the ground. I have never even seen a supressor in person and I don’t know anyone who has ever fired one so you can bet I was all over that thing! It is pretty remarkable how quiet they are. Fabio also took me to the firing range where we used cell phones as targets. I don’t know why, but he just had bags of display cell phones in his car.
Later that day we spent some time in Rosario seeing the sites and hanging out. Here are a handful of random pictures.
“Stairway to Atlantis.”
Hiram and Nancy’s adorable baby! She is so sweet!
“El Tortuga”
Hiram, Nancy, and the baby
Here’s a shot of Arturo. AKA ”I dooooooon’t knooooooooow” (inside joke!)
The next day we headed to Cordoba for workshop number 2! It was another incredible workshop hosted by a great group of photographers. I could basically just copy and paste all the great things I said about the people we met in Rosario and then paste it here because everyone we met in Argentina was just awesome. Thank you all so much for everything. Most of all I have to thank Mariano Leiva who was our host and he played a huge role in bringing us to Argentina. We owe you so much and we are so grateful to have met you! Thank you for your hospitality and your friendship!
I only take epic maternity photos. I’m still waiting on the photo where we are all looking in the same place but this will do for now, haha.
Well this blog is going to be brief because it is 5 a.m. and I’ve been up since 8 a.m.! Right now I’m sitting at my good friend and fellow SHOOTER, Hiram Trillo‘s house in Dallas trying to get everything squared away before we take off to Argentina. Things have been so crazy over the past couple months with the tour and living out of a suitcase. I got a chance to go home for a couple days and then we just left again!
Anyway, the Flashfire Workshop Tour has finally come to an end! It was such a wild ride filled with incredible experiences and amazing people. I’m looking forward to announcing more dates soon. Be sure to come join me in Nashville on October 25th for (what could be) my final Flashfire Workshop of 2011! Register here.
Here are a few of my favorite shots from our last couple stops of the tour. Next stop, Argentina to teach a couple workshops there!
Well we have been on the road now for… well we have pretty much lost track. We rarely know what day it is and we tend to forget what city we are in on a daily basis, haha. It feels like we have been gone for forever but we have had tons of great experiences with lots of cool people. Our past couple hotels have had issues with the internet so blogging hasn’t been easy so today I’m just going to roll Detroit, Cincinnati, and Louisville into one post. Get ready for image overload!
Detroit might be a little rough around the edges… but the edges are where we like to shoot
CLICK HERE for a behind the scenes video of how we got this shot!
Pour Jessica got destroyed.
We found a pile of ice in an alley. We decided it would be a good idea to throw it at each other in pictures. We were right.
I went to the Smug Mug meeting last night in Atlanta and I was just blown away! I got so much more out of those 2 hours than I ever thought I would. You are such an inspiration! Thank you so much for taking the time. I truly appreciate it! I wish I could have been there today, but work calls! Thanks again!
This week Casey and I hit the road and made our way to the Windy City! I spoke to a packed house at the local SMUG Meetup on Tuesday and got a lot of great feedback from the members. I may be coming back up there sometime in 2012 so keep a lookout for that
The next day we did our Flashfire Workshop and had a blast (and got harassed by the cops… but more on that later!)
I’m going to keep this post short because I’ve got to photograph a wedding tomorrow!
Here are some of my favorites. Huge thanks to Dan Gin for hosting!
Well we were shooting on the railroad tracks when some railroad employees drove by yelling “you know that’s a live track right!?” to which we replied yes. They kept yelling and we pretended to walk away. As soon as they were gone we got back out and started shooting. We might have gotten 10 minutes of shooting done when 2 cops showed up yelling that we couldn’t be there and asking for everyone’s ID. Well we all pulled out our ID’s and one of the students, Tom, happens to be a state trooper. Well, that changed the cops tone pretty quickly. They still kicked us off the spot but luckily we didn’t get any tickets or anything!
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I'm on tour now teaching my Flashfire Workshops! across the midwest! Flashfire is a full day workshop all about igniting your passion for lighting and transforming your images with your speedlights.
I'll be hitting 10 cities in 6 weeks starting at the end of July so be sure to check out the website and sign upHERE!
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SHOOTERS is a lighting workshop by off-camera flash wizards, Brett Jarnagin,Hiram Trillo, and Danny Cuevas. Our goal is to help you take your images from drab to dramatic through a hands on teaching style covering everything from OCF to post-processing.
SHOOTERS has already put on workshops in Mexico and the US and we are willing to travel anywhere in the world! Contact me about hosting a workshop and check out our site to sign up for one!
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The next day (my birthday) we headed into Guadalajara. We were with a friend from Guadalajara (also named Raul) and he had a guitar. Panhandling in another country has been on my bucket list for awhile now so I kind of stole his guitar (sorry Raul!) and hit the streets. We had a good time. I’d really like to do it more. Playing on the street for strangers is pretty fun, especially when 95% of them have no idea what the words you are singing mean. These were taken by my fellow SHOOTER, Hiram Trillo. Thanks bro!
I only take epic maternity photos.
I’m still waiting on the photo where we are all looking in the same place but this will do for now, haha. 
The gnome in Chicago!
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