Beginner Photography Lessons (4 Pack)

These personalized classes provides you with twelve hours of one-on-one instruction and are designed to take you from a complete beginner in photography, to someone with a firm grasp of photographic techniques.  

By the time you complete these four lessons you will have the skills and understanding to continue your photographic journey on your own.  

Course Outline:

Lesson 1: Foundations of Composition: (3 hr)

• Photographic Composition:  Composition can make an interesting subject bland or make an ordinary subject appear beautiful. In this course, you will explore the concepts of composition, from basics such as the rule of thirds to more advanced topics such as the way the eye travels through a photo.

  • What is composition for?
  • Rules of composition.
  • Breaking the rules.
  • Psychology of composition.
  • Using your cameras focus points.

• Self Study Project #1:

  • You will go home with a photographic assignment to complete.  The assignment will help you to hone the skills we learned in class.

 

Lesson 2: Camera Basics (3 hr)

• Photography Concepts:  Like anything else in life, before the fun starts we need to learn the basics.  In photography that means learning some concepts about how your camera and lens work when you bring the outside world onto your film (or sensor).  And then there's all those buttons and menus…. What does it all do?

  • Achieving proper exposure.
  • Aperture (f stops) and depth of field.
  • Shutter speed and motion.
  • ISO and image clarity.
  • Improving dynamic range.
     

• Camera Settings:  In order to accomplish the skills of exposure we must also know how to work our own cameras.  This class will address some of the basic camera features common to all DSLRs.

  • M, A, S, P – what are they for?
  • Presets
  • Working with your menus

• Self Study Project #2:

  • You will go home with a photographic assignment to complete.  The assignment will help you to hone the skills we learned in class.

 

Lesson 3: Getting Creative (3 hr)

• Fun with your Camera:
  • By now, you will have a pretty good grasp of how to work your camera and the basic concepts used in photography.  However, as we all know, photography is an art more than a science and with that in mind, class three focuses creative techniques.
  • The class is filled with lots of fun creative photographic "experiments" which not only produce fun images, but more importantly will introduce you to creative techniques which you can then apply to a world of other situations and subject matter.
  • Each creative technique is based on different principles of light, exposure and camera functionality.  You will learn a lot about expanding your artistic ideas through these fun exercises.
• OR
  • Having an instructor with you breaking down each shot and helping you to think through each image is the best way to truly undertand the technical information learned during previous classes. We will visit a location of interest for your preferred photographic style.  We will practice using the skills you have learned on real life subjects and situations.

 

Lesson 4: Post Production or Portfolio Review (3 hr)

• Post Production Skills/Portfolio:

  • While great photography starts with you and your camera, often it is what happens in the dark room (or in today's world… on the computer) which can bring your full creative vision to life.  So no beginner class is complete without at least getting your feet wet with some post production software training.
    • Improving exposure, lighting, contrast and colors.
    • Cropping and alignment.
    • Working with compression
    • Resizing and exporting.
  • You will bring 20 of your best photographs to our lesson (including those with great subject matter, but poor execution).  Together we work on those photos, discussing how they can be improved with the use of post production.  
  • I will "work" your photos for you using Lightroom, Photoshop and several other programs.  As I enhance your photos I will demonstrate each step in detail so that you will learn how to improve your photographs on your own.
  • By the end of class you should have 20 greatly improved photographs to use as your starting portfolio.
  • A Better Portfolio:
    • We will discuss various websites and options for displaying your work online.  Which sites work best and why.
    • How to best present your work to editors or anybody for that matter.
    • "Organic" promotion of your work through social networks.
    • Private website development options for photographers.

OR (optional choice)

• Full Day Field Trip: We can combine lessons 3 & 4 together for a full day field trip (approx six hour) where we will have the time to head into the mountains for better locations (often students prefer this option as it's a lot of fun and really gets you into the field). We will seek out quality photo opportunities and go in depth, step by step through each image we take.  This is often the best way to learn how to implement everything you've learned in the previous lessons.

 

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Price: Visit Pricing Page  

This combo pack will save you a good bit of cash over taking four seperate classes.