9th March 2019 – 9.30am to 5.00pm at Tansley, near Matlock in Derbyshire. Places cost £85.00 each.
Do you struggle to produce images that rise above the level of snapshots?
Are your photos technically sharp and well exposed but still “lacking something”?
Would you like to learn how to compose your pictures properly, rather than just “pointing and shooting”?
If so, join us on this one day course and photo walk suitable for all types of photographers and cameras – from phone cameras to professional dslrs.
While some people just seem to have “an eye for a good photograph”, others struggle to produce images with visual impact, and are dissatisfied when they compare them to those taken by other photographers. The difference between a mere snapshot and a good photograph is often to do with composition.
Composition is something that applies to every photograph you take – whether it’s a stunning landscape taken with a top of the range camera on a carefully positioned tripod or a selfie with a phone camera. All photographs benefit from being well composed. But what is good composition, and how can you learn it to help you take better photographs?
This course will teach you how to create visual impact in your images. You will learn some of the guidelines that will help you to think about how you approach your subject rather than just “point and shoot”. These guidelines are applicable to all types of subjects – whether you aim is to make fine art images to hang on your wall, or just to take better photos of your family and pets. This course is only about composition – it is not about the buttons and dials on your camera – so it is equally suitable for all types of cameras from phone cameras to top end professional dslr and mirrorless cameras, as well as film cameras. (If you need help to learn how to work the controls on your camera, we also run digital photography courses for beginners, and intermediate level landscape photography courses on a regular basis in Derbyshire, the Peak District and on the edge of Sheffield).
The course will be divided into two parts. In the morning, we will be indoors to learn some of the principles of composition – including how to define your subject using position, colour, perspective, symmetry and patterns. Using lots of images as examples, we will analyse what it is that makes them work – or not, in some cases!
In the afternoon, we will go on a photo walk to put into practise what we have covered in the morning session. It will be a circular walk of about 2 miles in length, across fields to a very photogenic valley with ponds, waterfalls, and historic mill buildings. The valley itself drops 200ft in just a few hundred yards, but there are good paths and stone steps – and we’ll be going downhill, rather than up! Apart from the valley, the walk is mainly on level ground on public footpaths and tracks away from roads, so it will not be at all difficult. As there will be a maximum of 6 people on this course, everyone will be able to get plenty of individual attention when we are photographing. Please contact us if you would like us to send you a booking form for this course.
Below is a slideshow of lovely images taken on one of our courses by one our clients in the same valley that we will be visiting on this course.
After the course, we will create a private web gallery that you can submit your best photographs from the day to. You will also be able to view and comment on the photographs that the others on the course have taken, so you can see how they approached the same subjects.
The morning session will be held indoors in the village hall at Tansley, near Matlock. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided, but please bring a packed lunch (which you can eat before we head outdoors for the afternoon session).