Picture It Better

I ran another course for beginners in digital photography today and had such a great day. It really doesn't feel like work - sharing something I love with other people who go away so enthusiastic and excited about what you've told them. Today I trained a former colleague, Catherine, who last knew me as the foot expert rather than the photographer - although she remembers me jumping up and down in excitement about buying a new camera lens too. And flogging flower photography calendars up and down the office! Talk about moonlighting - the writing was probably on the wall way before I was made redundant.

So, anyway, there I was today teaching her and her two friends how to take better photographs with their new SLR cameras. They were typical of the people I teach - they know how they want their pictures to look but get frustrated as they don't know how to achieve it. They consider their good pictures to be lucky snapshots. As ever, they are hard on themselves and have usually got a good eye for a nice image. Husbands and dads have tried to explain about apertures and shutter speeds but somehow the penny has never dropped and the camera has stayed on the fully AUTO mode (little green square).

By the end of my training sessions people usually tell me that I have cut through all the jargon and made it all make sense. Catherine commented today that she hadn't known what anything on the screen on the back of the camera had meant and that she was going away able to interpret it all and say what ISO setting she was on and why and what shutter speed and aperture she / the camera had used. Things like Auto White Balance and Exposure Compensation now made sense.

On week days I train at an amazing venue - Davenports Farm Shop at Bartington on the A49. The staff are very friendly and accommodating, giving over an entire room free of charge  in the Alice in Wonderland themed tea rooms to me. The choice of tea and coffee is dizzying but Belinda will guide you through and select the best one with you and all the food is locally sourced and freshly prepared by Belinda and her husband. The cakes are to die for - I drooled so much over the miniature cakes served to two ladies nearby that they donated the ones they couldn't quite manage to us!

I combine the classroom sessions with practical exercises outside and Davenports has oodles of interesting subjects. Today we concentrated on the outdoor chess set, practising using the Av mode to set different apertures to increasingly blur the background and also seeing how zooming in compresses perspective. On previous courses we've photographed the ostriches and alpachas, flowers, fruit and veg, old fencing - the opportunities are endless.

A 4 hour course costs £100, whether it's one person or 3, so getting some friends along to share the cost obviously makes sense. 2-3 people is ideal to get sufficient 1:2:1 attention, but also to generate a buzz and good atmosphere. If you like the sound of it get in touch and we'll sort out a convenient date. I can tailor the courses to suit particular interests e.g. portraits / close up flowers etc. All in all I am always told that it's a great day out and very informative and practical.