Chris | Peak Digital Training

Beginners’ Digital Photography Courses in Derbyshire – Getting off Auto Mode

Learn how to get off the auto mode and take control of your camera!

Saturday September 26th – 10.00am to 4.30pm. Fully booked.

Saturday October 17th – 10.00am to 4.30pm. Places available.

Saturday November 7th – 10.00am to 4.30pm. Places available.

Saturday December 5th – 10.00am to 4.30pm. Places available.

To allow for plenty of individual attention, there will be a maximum of only 6 people on each of these courses. Places cost £99.00 each.

Please contact us if you would like to be emailed a booking form to reserve a place.

These one day courses are being held in the village of Tansley, near Matlock in Derbyshire. They are run in a relaxed and informal atmosphere, and designed to bring together people with similar levels of ability. Group numbers are deliberately kept low so that the workshops are flexible and easily adapted to suit the specific needs and level of experience of the participants.

Continue reading “Beginners’ Digital Photography Courses in Derbyshire – Getting off Auto Mode”

Aviation Photography Course – Photographing Aircraft in Flight

An afternoon and evening of action photography at East Midlands Airport.

Thursday August 20th 4.00pm – 9.00pm.

This bespoke one to one training workshop costs £275.00. Please contact us to reserve your place or if you need any further information.

This is a special one to one training opportunity, which has been timed to coincide with the last late night opening of the year at the East Midlands Aeropark. The Aeropark is located only 170m from the runway of East Midlands Airport, and offers superb views of aircraft taking off and landing – as well as across to the DHL cargo apron. The Aeropark has free car parking, toilet facilities and a snack bar. Better still, it also has two large viewing mounds, one of which is higher than the airport perimeter fence, and offers a superb vantage point for photographing aircraft free of any obstructions.

The Aeropark also has a collection of nearly 30 complete post-WW2 aircraft (including a Vulcan bomber) on display outside, which we can photograph in addition to the arrivals and departures at the airport. A full list of the Aeropark’s aircraft can be seen here. On the day of our workshop, the Aeropark is holding the last of this year’s special late evening openings, and will stay open until 9.00pm.

Aviation photography workshops UK. Photo © Chris James — A Boeing 777 landing, seen from the mound in the East Midlands Aeropark

East Midlands Airport is the second busiest cargo airport in the UK, and this workshop is being held on a Thursday (which is their busiest day of the week). The airport is conveniently located next to the M1 motorway, and Sheffield, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire are all within easy reach. There are also good public transport links by bus and rail from Derby and Nottingham.

We will hopefully have a variety of aircraft types to photograph – from large and small jet airliners and cargo aircraft to turboprop aircraft, business jets and light aircraft. If we’re lucky, we might also get to see the Rolls Royce Heritage Flight’s Spitfire, P-51 Mustang or Harvard which are based here. The workshop will start in the afternoon, and continue until after sunset at 9.00pm – which should allow us to get some great shots in “golden hour” light, as well as at sunset itself. Continue reading “Aviation Photography Course – Photographing Aircraft in Flight”

Sunset and Beyond – Low Light and Night Photography in the Peak District

“It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly coloured than the day” Vincent Van Gogh

Peak Digital Training is now offering bespoke sunset and night photography training on a 1 to 1 basis. Because this type of photography is so dependent on cloud and weather conditions, it allows us to be as flexible as possible and schedule the training at short notice.

The training can take place at any mutually convenient time, and at various locations in the Derbyshire Peak District. As well as 1 to 1, the training can also be tailored for couples or small groups.

Prices start at £200.00 for a 5 hour session.

Please contact us if you would like more information, or to discuss your requirements.

Most photographers have tried to photograph a sunset at some point (many cameras even have a special “sunset” mode), but are more often than not disappointed with the results. On this workshop you’ll find out why this can happen, and learn some of the techniques that will make your sunset photos really come alive. Many of these same techniques also apply to twilight and night sky photography, and we will teach you how and when to use them.

Modern digital cameras work extremely well in low light conditions, and have made night photography much easier and predictable than it used to be just a few years ago. So if you’ve ever wanted to try low light, night photography or “light painting“, our training will show you how to get started, and what fun it can be!

We can advise on the best locations in the Peak District for both sunsets and night photography, and also suitable dates depending on whether you want to photograph stars and the Milky Way, the full moon or landscapes lit by moonlight.

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Peak District Autumn Landscapes

Saturday, October 10th – 10.30am to 6.30pm. Only 1 place still available.

This course is limited to just four photographers, and places cost £99.00 each.

This intermediate level landscape photography course has been timed to take advantage of the wonderful colours of autumn, and will be held on the moors around Fox House (close to the border between Derbyshire and Sheffield). The course is accessible by public transport.

This practical course will involve a whole day’s outdoor photography, starting at 10.30am and finishing just after sunset at 6.30pm.

This part of the Peak District offers a wonderful range of subjects – including waterfalls, colourful oak and birch woodlands, old millstone quarries, and natural gritstone outcrops. As this is one of the best spots in the Peak District for temperature inversions, we might also get lucky and have some mist in the morning. For those interested in close-up and macro subjects, there should be plenty of interesting fungi at this time of year as well.

Please contact us if you would like to request a booking form to reserve a place on either of these courses. Continue reading “Peak District Autumn Landscapes”

Peak District Winter Landscapes Photography Course

Saturday November 21st – 10.00am to 4.30pm.

Places cost £99.00 each. Places available.

This course will be limited to just 4 photographers, with places costing £99.00 each. Please contact us to request a booking form, or if you need any further information about this course.

This intermediate level course will explore some of the wonderful photographic subjects around Stanton Moor, between Bakewell and Matlock in the Peak District. We will spend the first part of the day in one of the former sandstone quarries which surround the moor. Stanton Moor has been prized for its fine grained stone for centuries (the paving for Trafalgar Square came from here), and the quarry we will visit still retains plenty of interesting features from its industrial past – though they have now been softened and partly reclaimed by nature. Continue reading “Peak District Winter Landscapes Photography Course”