I taught a group of lovely students over the February half term break, and we had a great time shooting together and viewing various pieces of work. The weather was fantastic for the course, the sun made an appearance, which was great as bright winter sun is quite saturated, and also quite low – which gave us loads of shadows to work with. We spent the first half of the class going over camera mechanics, and I taught each of the students how to use their cameras on the manual and semi-manual settings. We then went out and about around shere practising shallow depth of field, and using motion as a creative tool. It was wonderful to see how enthusiastic the students were, I remember the days of wanting to capture everything through my lens! As digital now allows us to do so and with ease, I asked the students to try and slow down, to think about the images they were taking, composing it in their viewfinder, rather than waiting to crop it in post production. I wanted them to be able to explain each shot and why they decided to take it, rather than just snapping away – and discarding them later. Discovering their own method to taking photographs is quite important, and I was really happy to see each student finding their own way.
Here are some of Emma’s favourite photos from the day:
