KNOWING AND LOVING YOUR CAMERA

Studio Workshops  –  Live and Interactive via ZOOM
•  2023 Dates TBC

This workshop can also be time-shifted for anyone unable to attend on the days it is presented, or time zone is too offset to comfortably attend in real time.

Memorable photographs are created, not found. Therefore learning how your camera ‘represents the world’ and how to change its appearance through your camera’s functions and control are critically important skills. Your camera needs to become an extension of your feelings so it never gets in your way, but instead facilitates your creation of more engaging, interesting and meaningful images.

This introductory workshop team taught by Les and Andrey Walkling provides a thorough introduction to your digital camera and the ‘art of capturing what you see and feel’. We meet for two and a half hours each week and undertake focussed exercises (both in-class and between classes) to help you practice and consolidate your learning. Sessions 3 and 6 commence with a review of your work supported by detailed feedback on your progress. Digital SLR, advanced mirrorless cameras and all levels of experience are catered for, and the class size is limited to ten people plus two instructors to maximise individual attention.  Topics include:

Session 1: Introduction. Understanding your Camera.
In this session you begin to befriend the functions and features of your digital camera, and how they affect the appearance and meaning of your images.

Session 2: Composition and Focus Exercises.
This session studies composition and the art of focusing. You will understand the different focusing modes and when to use them to facilitate interesting and engaging compositions.

Session 3: Aperture and Depth of Field Exercises.
This session is all about depth of field, what it is and how to creatively employ it. Different genres of photography illustrate depth of field priorities and how depth of field changes the spatial relationships in your images.

Session 4: Shutter Speed and Motion Exercises.
This session concentrates on capturing/expressing photographic motion and how to use shutter speed variations to prioritise motion and its descriptive effect on your images.

Session 5: Colour Balance and Perspective Exercises.
This session is all about colour and drawing in images, including in-camera colour balance for heightened emotional renderings, and perspective changes to clarify the look and feel of your images.

Session 6: Manual Control Exercises.
This session recaps all of the skills from the previous sessions only now with your camera in full manual mode for the ultimate creative control of every aspect of your image creation.

There is also a course resource website, and each week we add additional resources (notes/videos/images) as well as emailing a detailed summary of what we covered in that class.

Updated 26 November 2022