Vernon Photography Walks
Saturday marked the last photography walk of the semester. There’s always six classes in total, and two of them are photography walks.
I’ve noticed that I can teach and and teach, but if there isn’t any hands on time, no one remembers what I teach. That’s what’s kept me away from the day courses too - there’s no way of me ensuring what you learn will stick. Here, you practice once on your own time, in the homework section, then again at the photo walk.
At the last one, at BX Dog Park, we talked about how your exposure can change the colours. A little lower, and the sunset comes out as orange. A little higher, and the sunset is bright yellow. Essentially, looking white.
Although the technical parts of an image are important - shutter speed, aperture, focal length, ect, that won’t teach you how to take great pictures. At least, not all by themselves. Composition is key, learning how to create an alluring image that draws the eye. Once you know what you’re looking for, it becomes easy. Then it’s changing around a few settings on the camera to come up with the mood you’re looking for.
Although many aren’t signing up for learning how to take pictures of people, we do discuss posing and placement in regards to light in the second walk. This is important, because everyone at some point in their lives will be in a situation where this could be useful. Perhaps you’d like to take a headshot for your husband. Maybe a friend of yours has a new baby and you’d like to photograph the three of them together. Perhaps you’d like to freeze those day-to-day moments when the kids are running around, before they’re all in college studying to become doctors.
In every environment, there’s beautiful things to capture, and an SLR can do it far better than any phone camera. You can do amazing things with even an entry level SLR, really anything with an interchangeable lens. The key is to pick up a few tricks, and get some experience in a fun, class setting under your belt.
But how much better is an SLR than a phone camera?
At the end of the last session, we do a side by side. One picture with our SLR, and another with our normal camera. Although I labelled the side-by-side, I don’t think it’s necessary here to see how much more flattering a proper photo taken with a proper camera can be.
All of these things play into the final composition - depth, colour, lens, tone, shutter speed, and of course, the most important of all, lighting.
If you’d like learn more about these classes, or sign up, click here.
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