A Week of Learning
I’ve spent a lot of this week learning and stretching myself photography wise. On Wednesday evening I attended a free photography class at the library taught by Ron Stern. What I learned there was that I know quite a bit about photography already :-) Oh, and that I had already chosen and read 2/3 of a great book on photography - Understanding Exposure
by Bryan Peterson. It is good to be reminded of the basics once in a while too.
The class was huge. At least double of what they expected so that was a little crazy. The timing was also a bit unfortunate since we were to have some lecture followed by some shooting. By the time we got outside the light was fading fast. But I still managed to capture a few things…
The instructor did a great job despite having at least double the number of people in the workshop as expected. I wouldn’t hesitate to take another workshop from him in the future. There were rumors at this one that another would be scheduled for a Saturday morning so there would not be the light issues we had to deal with. If you are a newer photographer or an auto-pilot photographer in the Fort Collins area I recommend keeping an eye on the library schedule of events for the reprise of this workshop.
Then yesterday I decided to take the DPS (digital photography School) 10 Shots, 10 Portraits, 1 Focal Length Challenge. I failed. Without a prime lens I couldn’t seem to maintain a single focal length. Neither extreme of my lens was really appropriate for portraiture. I do realize one could take that as a challenge as well, but I found it near impossible to get a good shot in one shot doing that. Fortunately, I had also taken on the challenge of photographing strangers. So, while I didn’t get 10 shots (I got 6 and only liked 3 of those) and they were at ~3 different focal lengths, I did stretch myself greatly. I’m not an extrovert and do not randomly start up conversations with others. This meant it was extremely difficult for me to ask strangers if I could take their picture. I also learned that women are probably more likely to say yes - at least of those people at the The Bean Cycle late yesterday afternoon.
