Portrait Photography Workshop (12 December 2026)
Portrait Photography Workshop with Glenn Homann
10–12 noon Saturday 12 December 2026
Acclaimed urban photographer Glenn Homann returns to Plant Empire for a 2-hour workshop focusing on creating atmospheric portraits using just your phone camera and natural light.
This is our second photography workshop with Glenn Homann (aka @blueboy70 on Instagram) whose uses an iPhone exclusively for all his photography and editing work.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your eye, discover how to create stylistic and moody portraits with the phone already in your pocket. With natural light and a few thoughtful techniques, you can capture striking photos of friends and family—and even give your selfies a fresh, more artful look.
Our portrait begins off-camera with identifying the aspects of a person's character and essence that we are hoping to capture in the portrait. Glenn will share examples of his own work and explain the techniques that he used with his phone camera to create those images with minimal effort and equipment in both indoor and outdoor settings. Glen will explain how exposure, depth of field and lighting affected the final result, and which could be easily manipulated using traditional D/SLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) camera. Then it's our turn practise shooting formal and candid portraits of our volunteer model and fellow workshop participants as (optional!) subjects, including headshots and full-body studies of subjects, playing with different poses and expressions to create different results.
Next comes editing, and Glenn's approach is that 90% of the work is done as the image is taken, but the final 10% comes from editing. Using the photographs we've taken during the workshop, Glenn will show us how to edit photos on our phone to enhance the image and create moody effects with monochrome and desaturation. Whereas Glenn's urban photography workshop focuses on using your phone's native photo editing tools, we will move beyond these in this workshop by accessing more features with the free editing app "Snapseed". We will be able to project our own phone screens to a monitor to share feedback and results with other participants.
By the end of the workshop, you'll have a set of professional-looking portraits, including a number of portraits of yourself that were taken by your fellow workshop participants (if you took up this option). Portraits are understandably personal in nature and participants are advised that photographs taken of individuals in this workshop will not be shared online or distributed without permission from the subject. Likewise, portraits taken of subjects may only be shared for their own personal (non-commercial) use.
Materials
The essential piece of equipment for this workshop is a mobile phone camera, so please bring along your iPhone or Android phone to use in the workshop.
Who Should Attend?
This workshop is suitable for beginners with little or no experience, as well as more advanced students who would like to learn from Glenn and develop their photography skills and techniques.
About Glenn Homann
Glenn Homann (aka @blueboy70 on Instagram) is an award-winning photographer who uses an iPhone exclusively for all his photography and editing work to capture unique imagery in and around his hometown of Brisbane. Having his phone camera on hand from dawn to dusk has shaped and honed Glenn's work, allowing him to focus on the moments and details that might evade the eye at first glance. Glenn's practice also involves editing photos on his phone very soon after the image is captured while the feelings and thoughts about his intentions with the image still fresh in the mind, ensuring that his photographs reflect his original attention to detail and focus on spontaneity. Glenn's photos lean into a minimal aesthetic and have received awards in numerous competitions around the world, both for general photography and those exclusively for mobile devices.
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Cost
$100 / $90 (Frequent workshoppers)
Frequent workshopper discount: Sign up for 2 or more Plant Empire workshops, or register 2 or more people for the same workshop, to receive 10% off the total registration price (discount will appear at checkout).
Location
Plant Empire has moved! This workshop will be held at our new premises in Tennyson, Brisbane: 15/55 Lofter St, Tennyson Q 4105.
Accessibility
In our new premises, we have ground floor workshop spaces as well as mezzanine level spaces with stairs. The ground floor spaces are all level without any steps, while the mezzanines are accessible via a staircase with 22 steps and 1–2 landings. Please let us know if you have any mobility issues that would limit your access to the mezzanine spaces so that we can ensure that your workshop is located at ground level by adding a note in the special instructions field when you register for your workshop: for example, "no stairs" or similar.
Reminders
You have full control over how (and how often) you receive reminders for our events. You will receive one email confirmation from us when you purchase your workshop registration; but we won't send any further email reminders, so please ensure that you have the workshop details in your diary. You can also use the "add to calendar" function in our events calendar to add workshops to your digital calendar and customise your reminder preferences.
Cancellation Policy
Please choose carefully before registering for this workshop as we do not offer refunds on event bookings. If you need to cancel your place up to 24 hours before the workshop, we will provide you with a voucher that you can use to attend a future workshop or any other purchase at Plant Empire. We regret that we are unable to provide vouchers for cancellations made within 24 hours of the workshop.
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