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Fundamentals of Photography
 

Class description:

If you don't understand shutter speeds, apertures, exposure, depth of field, etc., it is very difficult to take your photography to the next level. I use these concepts every time I shoot - and so should you. Our fundamentals of photography class is a prerequisite to our more advanced classes and lays down the foundation to take your photography to the next step. If you are new to photography and looking for help or if you have a new camera and want to get the most out of it, this is the class for you. If you've had your camera for some time and you just can't understand it, this class is also a good choice.

Curriculum:

This class is for beginners to intermediate. We will start with basics, beginning with an in-depth exploration of the three most important settings on your camera: aperture, shutter speed and ISO. This includes quizzes, interactive demonstrations, activities and even homework. We will explore the basics of exposure, lenses, depth of field and additional photographic concepts. Then we review how these apply to your camera. It's at this time that the settings on your camera begin to make sense - usually for the first time.

The goal of this class is to use this information to understand how to take better pictures both technically and also compositionally. If your photos are too light, too dark, blurry, out of focus, etc., we will figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. And then we study composition and the use of light in order to take beautiful photos.

No discussion of photography in the digital era would be complete without touching on 'post-processing' or 'photoshopping' your images. Although this is not a Photoshop class, we will briefly look at the most popular tools for image editing and cover some basic post processing concepts

We will also touch on some advanced photographic techniques, such as night photography, time exposures, nature photography, action photography, portraiture, how to photograph lightning and fireworks and more.