Photography Day

On Sunday I had a fun day to myself! I plead guilty, I own a DSLR ( Digital single-lens reflex camera,)  a Canon 500D and I've only ever used it in automatic! Believe me, I do achieve beautiful photos this way but I have always had the ambition to learn properly how to use my camera in manual mode. Kirsty Wiseman was offering day courses in our local area and I asked Mark if I could take part in one for my Birthday pressie. He agreed and I booked in on the Carlisle day. Unfortunately there were not enough numbers to run it but Kirsty relocated the course (on the same day) to her hometown of Wigan. I was delighted. In the end she actually ran the course from her home and I was the only pupil so I got one to one tuition! I have known Kirsty through scrapbooking for a number of years so I knew I was in for a lovely day. Poor Kirsty was feeling poorly on the day but welcomed me into her home and after having a cup of tea and natter we got started. Firstly I learnt about the basics of photography, putting the camera into AV mode, apertures, shutter speed priority, ISO, white balance etc. Thank goodness we made notes as we went along, I was suffering a little with information overload but Kirsty was very patient in explaining things until I understood them. We took photos of her angel figurine and put into practise the techniques Kirsty taught with varying degrees of success!

Kirsty's lovely hubby, Mark, made us a light lunch before we set out to her local park, The Three Sisters. When we arrived we couldn't resist a lolly from the ice cream van, LOL! Back to work, I learnt about focal points, I really liked this part of the lesson, it was interesting to learn how to focus on the part you want vivid and then compose your photo. Here's an example, in the first photo my face is in focus but my hand isn't. I didn't move but then Kirsty focused on my hand first and now my face is out of focus.

Next was composition, I learnt about the rule of thirds, symmetry and continuous images. Learning about the focal point in my photograph and where to position it in the image. In these following 2 examples I have focused on the gold crest of the bench and the lock in the fence. You can see how the rest of the image is blurred in the distance.

Lastly I learnt about portraits, to focus right in between the persons eyes (the centre of a face) and then recompose. I took Kirsty's photo first and I must admit for a first attempt I was very pleased with the result. Look how much Kirsty is in focus and the background is all blurred out, that is the ultimate of what I wanted to learn during the day!

Then Kirsty very kindly took a portrait of me!

I am delighted with my new knowledge, Kirsty was a wonderful teacher and I would definitely recommend one of her classes.