Tuesday, March 29, 2011

the workshop

I went to an all day photography workshop yesterday, and it was fabulous! It was just what I needed since, I confess, I have never quite known how to use my DSLR to the best of its ability. I have always tended to keep things in automatic mode with minor adjustments here and there for white balance or things like that. I've always known it wasn't enough.

I walked away from yesterday's workshop with so much more knowledge! Super exciting!! The photos I took aren't super inspiring, but they do demonstrate the camera's abilities. We did tons of mini assignments to play with the ISO, aperture, shutter speed, light metering and flash exposure compensation. I admit I didn't even have a solid understanding of what most of that meant until I took the workshop.

Here are some of the shots I took to demonstrate different techniques.

freezing motion in suspended raindrops:


metering the light and adjusting the shutter speed to capture things in the intended light:




Playing with the aperture to capture depth of field:




Panning with a slow shutter speed to capture moving object in motion:


Metering the light to capture accurate or flattering skin tones:




And lastly, my personal favorites from the day:




I learned so much! I look forward to putting my new knowledge into practice in the coming weeks!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oohh, that looked like fun. What'd you go through? I want to do one.

Soon, Then said...

Wendy, it was by a company called Capturing True Emotion and they offer a number of beginning workshops and also take people on some great photography expeditions. They are a two person teaching team, and the man, Val, was an excellent, excellent teacher. I would recommend the workshop to anyone looking to learn how to use their camera more effectively!

Unknown said...

Awesome! Did you go to the zoo?

rebecca said...

looks like a really valuable class! wish i had a fancy camera! guess i'll just keep clicking away. :) you got some great shots. your new knowledge will surely help you get some great motion shots of the littles too.