A Day of Learning

W-A-Y back in October, I signed up for an all-day photography workshop that included a 2-hour "safari" to practice what was taught in the class. I couldn't wait to go, and was really looking forward to having some "ah-ha!" moments as my knowledge of this hobby expanded. Today was the day! I dropped Erin off at school and headed up to Newport Beach to the hotel where the class was being held. The class started out with the basics - camera settings, ISO, aperture, shutter speed, etc. - and I was thrilled to realize that all of my work that I've been doing by myself had already given me a good understanding of those aspects of photography. Later in the morning, he spent time talking about metering (one of those areas that has left me confused and baffled up to this point) and composition. I left the morning session feeling both validated and that I'd gained enough new knowledge to make the time worthwhile.

After lunch, it was time for the safari. We met in the atrium of the hotel, where our host gave us a series of assignments to go out and shoot, using settings that he prescribed. After doing that with a few different groups of settings, we moved outside as a group to get lessons in panning and to experiment more with metering. It was great to see how a shot would change based on what was metered ("duh" for more experienced photographers, I know, but as I said, this part was pretty new to me). I also found myself answering questions for some of the more confused members of our group, further making me feel like I actually know something about all this stuff.

Here are a few of the photos I kept from the day!

A few from inside the atrium.

Some of the group got really into their depth of field assignment, taking pictures of something on the floor.

A few shots from our assignments outdoors.

And one of our group lined up to practice panning (as our instructors ran by us over and over and over). It was quite a large group!

And finally, a picture that wasn't taken by me, but that was sent to me in response to the post I'd made last month about the drivers around Erin's school.You can't tell from this picture, but yes, the driver had parked his car right next to the sign that said there is no parking there during the time he had parked there. <Sigh...> I don't even have the energy to talk about this one, for a variety of reasons.