Photography Class

A few weeks ago, I decided to sign up for a Digital Photography class through the Peoria Art Guild. The class will focus on camera controls, basic photography concepts, and a small amount of post processing (Photoshop or similar).

So far, we've had two weeks of class. Each week, we discuss a general concept, and make sure everyone knows how to use their camera to exploit that concept. Then, we have homework to exercise what we've discussed and have to bring in several prints for review / critique. This is the part of the class I most look forward to. I have done so much reading and playing, I feel I have a pretty good understanding of the technicals in using the camera controls. Where I have difficulty is execution.

The first week's assignment was "36 points of view". We discussed framing your subject (basically the "rule of thirds") and Depth of Field (how much of the picture is in sharp focus from near to far). To keep some consistency throughout the class, we were to photograph a person at a location of our choice. We could have the subject move a few feet if needed, but, basically, we were to take the same shot from 36 different points of view (above, below, near, far, all sides, etc....). Hut ohh! People / portraiture is probably the furthest style of photography from my comfort zone! Hence, all the landscape type of pictures I generally take / post. I just haven't developed the eye for poses and all the little distracting things that seem to find their way into your shots, not to mention my horrible timing and I seem to always get the really bad facial expressions or catch someone mid-blink. Oh well, class is all about learning, right? Right!

So, after getting the assignment on Thursday night, I start thinking about who, when, where, etc... Oh, and we were supposed to use available light...so no flash...night is out! Anyway, the next day, Connie asked how class went. I told her that it went well, oh, and by the way, I need to talk to you...see...I have this assignment.... :-) She agreed to be my subject (whew!!). I tried to convince her that lingerie shots would be best (figured nude was pushing it heh)...she didn't buy into it.

Next, I decided on Riverfront park as the location, and the time was pretty much restricted to the only time that worked for both of us...about 4:00 Sunday.

We met at the designated time and actually had a pretty good time. Though, I think she was about as uncomfortable as I was most of the time. It all worked out in the end. Here are some of the shots I took to class:

This one (above), the only real suggestion was to loose the light colored building in the background of the lower left corner.



This one was a slight deviation from the assignment. But, I liked it quite a bit, so went with it. :-)

So, I made it through the first week of class and really feel like I learned quite a bit through the process (i.e. mistakes). A big "thanks" to Connie for being such a good sport!

This week's assignment...light and shadows. hmmmm.....

Note:due to the width of the current template, the pictures are resized to fit. If you click on them, the originals don't have those jaggie edges. I'm just too lazy to make yet another copy for the sole purpose of posting to the blog.