These courses have now taken place, but you can see details of all our other courses here.
Saturday, November 11th from 9.30 am to 4.30 pm. £99.00 per person.
Saturday, November 18th from 9.00am to 4.30pm. £99.00 per person.
These intermediate level landscape photography courses have both 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). Both courses are accessible by public transport.
The October 21st course will run from 10.00 am to 6.00pm, so will include photography during “golden hour” right up to sunset time if the weather conditions are suitable.
The course on November 18th features a whole day’s photography, starting just after sunrise at 9.00am and finishing after sunset at 4.30pm.
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. If we are lucky, we might well get some mist in the morning – this is one of the best spots in the Peak District for temperature inversions! For those interested in close-up and macro subjects, there should be plenty of interesting fungi at this time of year as well.
To allow all participants to get plenty of individual attention, each course will be limited to just four photographers, with places costing £99.00 each.
Please contact us if you would like to request a booking form to reserve a place on this course.
Exactly where we go on each day will depend on the light and weather conditions, but part of the time will be spent photographing the waterfalls and moving water in a delightful wooded valley. Here you will have the chance to experiment with different shutter speeds and long exposures – with the autumn colours adding an extra element to your compositions. You will need a tripod (but we have some that you can borrow if you don’t already have one of your own), and we also have some sets of filters that you can borrow for use with the moving water and waterfalls. For lunch, we will go to a local pub or tearoom – or you can bring a packed lunch if you prefer. A break at lunchtime will also allow us to review the photographs you have taken in the morning on the laptop we will bring along.
In the afternoon we will hopefully head up onto the moors, from where there are superb 
views over the Dark Peak to the west. There is plenty of subject matter – including abandoned millstones and quarry faces, derelict quarry buildings, old packhorse roads, an Iron Age hill fort, and photogenic gritstone edges and rock formations. These will also open up options for long exposures with moving clouds if sky conditions are suitable. Since the sun will set just before each course finishes, we should be able to get some great shots in golden hour light and at sunset if weather conditions permit.
Here are some examples of photos taken by some of our clients on previous courses in this area:
The locations we will be using are all quite accessible, so we can spend the minimum 
amount of time walking to locations, and the maximum time actually taking photographs. They should be well within the capabilities of anyone who is reasonably fit (though this course is not suitable for people who have mobility problems). However, we will be on exposed moorland where the paths are often rough and uneven, and there will probably be some muddy and boggy areas, so stout footwear with good grip is strongly advised, as is appropriate outdoor clothing for the time of year.
As these are intermediate, rather than beginners’ level courses, it is important that you are already familiar with the basics of photography and how to use your camera in other than the “all-automatic” mode. If you are not confident about how to use shutter speeds, lens apertures and ISO to control exposure, and how to focus your camera, please come on one of our beginners’ digital photography courses first, where we teach those skills. See here for details of all the digital photography courses we currently have scheduled.
On our landscape photography courses, we concentrate less on what the buttons and dials on your camera do, and more on the creative side of photography. Subjects covered include:
- composition for picture impact
- creative use of lens apertures, shutter speeds and different types of lenses
- how to get the colours looking the way you want them in your photos
- tips for shooting in RAW format for maximum quality
- shooting in fully manual (M) mode
- how and when to use different types of filters on your lenses
- correct tripod technique
Our landscape photography courses are most suitable for owners of digital slr or mirrorless cameras that have interchangeable lenses – whether they are a Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax, Ricoh, Panasonic, Olympus, Fuji, Samsung or any other make. Compact and bridge cameras may also be suitable, but some have certain limitations due to their small sensor sizes, and whether or not filters can be attached to them.
Please contact us for advice or to request a booking form, or if you need any further information about this course.