Description
Photography merges art, craft, science, and math and then it collides those ideas with curiosity, creativity, and imagination. Taken together it can feel overwhelming. This four-week online photography course aims to help you master the craft, so you can use your imagination and curiosity to effectively create photos.
The course covers:
- Basic camera controls, such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance.
- How to use settings to get the effects you want.
- Focusing systems
- Stops of light
- Bracketing
- Understanding the histogram
- Metering
- Image quality settings
- Camera modes, such as aperture priority and fully manual.
- Equipment selection and building a system that works for the type of photography you want to do.
- Best practices for getting sharp shots.
- And more…
These topics may change slightly based on the overall experience of the group.
Recommended Gear
For this online photography course, you’ll need a camera that offers manual camera settings. A tripod is helpful.
You’ll need a computer and internet connection with the ability to connect to the internet. Ideally, you’ll have a webcam or hook your camera up to your computer using a webcam utility program from your camera’s manufacturer. You’ll want a microphone and speakers as well. We’re using Zoom for this class, so if you already Zoom, you’re covered.
We will use the smartphone application Team Reach between classroom session to communicate. It’s a group messaging application that you can use to ask questions and share your work.
Schedule
After the first three classroom schedules, you will receive an assignment to do over the next week. The assignment may take up to one or two hours depending on how much work you want to put into it.
Session one: After introductions, we start with the very basics of your camera, camera systems, camera modes, image quality, adjusting the viewfinder to give you a sharp image based on your eyesight, and understanding light.
Session two: We do a deep dive into camera settings and what the different settings look like creatively. Depending on the number of questions, we may also dive into focus systems.
Session three: We cover exposure and learning the math of stops of light and the science behind it. You’ll learn how to use the histogram in the field and a method of exposure that works every time.
Session four: This is a flexible session to wrap up anything that we didn’t get covered or answer questions, and we will cover best practices for getting sharp shots. We’ll also cover sensor dust and how I clean my camera sensors.
Acknowledgement
Bryan Hansel is a fiscal year 2021 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
