Me and My Camera go Exploring in Greenwich

 

You may remember me posting about my word for the year, way back in January.  My chosen word was CREATE, and my aim for 2016 was to develop my creativity. One of the things I wanted to work on was my photography.  I so want to take better pictures for Changing-pages, when I travel and also of my family and friends.   I also want to understand how to use my camera, and not just take pictures in the auto setting, which is my default mode.  Now, either my husband, who is a very good photographer, reads this blog, or, he’s fed up with me bleating on about my inability to master my  camera. Or, fed up with me constantly asking him inane questions, that I don’t then understand the answers to about depth of field and aperture  (the same thing apparently ).  Or, maybe its all 3.  However for my birthday he bought me a hands on one day photography workshop with a company called Going Digital.

Now of course I was thrilled with this pressie, but I have to admit to a certain amount of apprehension as the day approached.  Would it be all middle-aged men in fleeces with fancy cameras and bags full of lenses? A major concern, quickly followed by, what should I wear?another fairly major concern.  For the record, there was only one middle-aged man, and he wasn’t wearing a fleece, and I wore shorts, it was a warm day.

The title of the workshop I chose to take was ‘Explore your camera – get off auto’ .  The aim of the workshop was to give a good foundation in photography in just one day, with lots of hands-on practice.  It sounded exactly what I was looking for. The day began well and I knew I was going to enjoy myself when our tutor started her instruction by saying “Don’t drop your camera in the Thames, there are eels”.  She made me laugh, and at that point I knew we would be starting from a fairly basic level.

My workshop took place in Greenwich.  With its green spaces, impressive buildings, the Cutty Sark, the Thames, and sweeping views of he city its a photographers dream.  There was of course classroom time, but there was also ample time to practice the theory in a very supportive environment.  We were a small group of 5 which made it easy to ask questions and get one -to- one help from our very knowledgeable tutor.  Inevitably we had to look at each others pictures at some point which felt a little scary. We handed over our memory cards to our tutor and our works of art were emblazoned on the wall for all to see.  This was much less painful than I had imagined.  Looking at everyone else’s work and having my own critiqued proved to be a useful learning experience.  I came away from the day excited about taking pictures and much more informed about what my camera  can do.  I also now understand aperture (I think)……

These are some of the  largely untouched (apart from a  bit of cropping) pictures I took.

And finally, I couldn’t resist this cheeky pooch, playing ball.

If you are interested in doing a photography workshop, I highly recommend Going Digital.  They run workshops all across the UK.  I’ve got my eye on ‘Close ups and macro ‘ next.

Images Changing pages