Amy with her Canon 7D & 430 EX II Speedlight in front of a famous downtown St. Petersburg banyan treeI met Amy on a rather warm spring St. Petersburg morning for our first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson.  Amy has been doing paid work with her Canon 7D for sometime, but was looking to learn from our lesson some of the very practical tips and tricks for how to make better photographs that are not found in books, videos or even in a photography classroom.  Since I am a self-taught photographer with years of expeirence I have a lot of real-world photogrpahy practices I can share with my students to not just improve the final results of their photographs, but how to make it easier to produce a good photo before ever pushing the shutter.

Amy had been shooting in "P" mode on her Canon 7D after receiving some bad advice from another photographer.  With her experience and with the subject matter she shoots I told her she should be shooting in manual mode exclusively, which is where we set our exposure dials for the entire lesson.  To further polish her professional way of shooting I turned off the "beep" on her 7D when getting a focus lock which is a most unwelcome sound when photographing in a quiet setting.  Then I showed her my very stable way of shooting by placing the left palm under the lens and shooting from a near sideways feet apart position allowing for both elbows to be against the body for support.

We finished the lesson at one of the two famous banyan trees in North Straub Park.  We started using her Canon 430 EX II Speedlight on the camera as she usually shoots, but then moved to using the Canon 7D's built-in remote flash trigger ability to get the speedlight off camera.  

I look forward to seeing how Amy applies all the things we practiced and discussed today in her future work.  If you live in or near Plant City, Amy's photography website can be found here.

Marcia on a new swing in downtown St. Petersburg with her Canon 7D during our photography lessonI met new DSLR Photography Lesson student Marcia for a rare Saturday morning lesson in downtown St. Petersburg.  She has owned a DSLR for awhile, having previously shot with a Canon 30D before getting the new Canon 7D.  She is even personal friends with Scott Kelby!  Marcia has a bag full of gear:  3 lenses, a tripod, external flash, etc. but for the first lesson we concentrated on the faily standard focal range of 18mm to 200mm which was covered entirely by her Canon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens.  

I taught Marcia my 4-settings method of producing the correct exposure for any given type of shot ranging from midday sunny widangle shots to being able to eliminate a distracting background to produce a good looking portrait anywhere.  Despite the strong sunshine, thunder rumbled from somewhere so we concluded the lesson under the safety of the big kapok silk-cotton tree beside the Museum of Fine Arts.  Presumably the museum put up the new swing hanging from one of the tree's large branches which makes for a nice prop for portrait practice.  Only using her external flash for for a few minutes, Marcia realized we could have an entire lesson just on it.  I said that is exactly right, as the first lesson usually covers a broad topic range, with each subsequent lesson focusing on one particular area of photography.

I look forward to seeing Marcia's photos of her poodles and travel related images she likes to make.

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Golda with her new Canon 7D at the New Salvador Dali Museum in downtown St. PetersburgIt was my first time to have a DSLR Photography Lesson on the grounds of the new Salvador Dali Museum on the St. Petersburg waterfront.  I will definitely be using it again as there are ample architecture photography opportunities along with a very interesting garden to photograph, plus good locations to practice portraits as well.  This was the site of my fourth of four lessons with Golda who will in September be going on a three week mediterranean cruise!!

I actually visited the Dali Museum to photograph it for promo shots for a hotel recently, but did not get up close like I did today.  The strange design of the "waterfall" of glass looks much better close up I think than it does from afar.  I used it for the background of the above portrait of Golda.  She is standing under a tree that has long green streamers tied to it, upon which people tie their Dali ticket wristbands as well as handwritten messages and notes.  I thought it was a nice interactive touch to have as part of the greater museum exterior.  

As for what we practiced during the lesson, we started with architecture shots of the building itself, then moved on to making shots with bokeh (using the streamers), transitioned to use an external flash to add fill light for portraits in the shade before ending with composing portraits to take advantage of repeating patterns.  It was a photography packed 2-hours!

I look forward to seeing Golda's mediterranean photos and especially the promised postcard she said she would send!

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Golda with her new 50mm lens attached to her new Canon 7D!!

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Due to our previously scheduled lesson unfortunately being rained out, it was an extended amount of time until I saw Golda again for our third of four DSLR Photography Lessons.  In that time she has been very busy . . . shopping for great new photography gear!  She added to her camera bag a Canon 7D (upgrading from a Canon XTi) and a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens!!  I knew she had ordered the 50mm lens, but I had no idea she was getting such a high end DSLR as well.  She wanted to be able to make the best photos possible when she goes on vacation soon so along with improving her photography skills with our lessons, she now has the gear to match.

We both exclusively used 50mm f/1.8 lenses from 7pm to 9pm never lacking for light as we used apertures ranging from f/2.8 to when necessary wide open at f/1.8.  We also mostly stayed in manual mode giving us total control over the exposure of our shots.  The first thing I showed Golda was how the very shallow DoF a 50mm f/1.8 lens can produce can turn any ordinary subject matter into a very intersting one due to the ease of creating bokeh.  Then I showed her that all bokeh is not equal and that the background still matters even if it is all blurred out.  Having lights or complementary colors in the bokeh of the background is important in producing the best shallow DoF shot possible.

Well after the sun had set and the sky was dark, we still used our 50mm lenses to produce great shots ending the lesson with some motion blur practice on passing cars on Beach Drive.  

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In just ten short days Teresa took all 8-hours of her DSLR Photography Lesson discount package.  This afternoon was another strobist and digital photo editing lesson.  Teresa showed up from New Port Richey with all kinds of new gear that made things go much smoother than last time.  Now with a proper light stand in tow, as well as the same Yongnuo flash radio triggers I have, we were ready to get down to some more in-depth off camera flash photography practice.

We shot exclusively in manual mode all day.  For strobist photography it is best to be in manual mode because there are only finite shutter speeds can use with the Yongnuo radio triggers anyway since they only sync up to 1/250th of a second.  In addition to using manual settings on her Canon 7D, now since we are using the aforementioned radio triggers we have to use her Nissin flash in manual mode too.  So now for the type of shot we were practicing today you have to manually set your aperture, shutter speed, and of course ISO, white balance and focus mode too, plus the power on your flash and then on top of all that think of how to best pose your subject for the given location!  There is also the matter of how to best position your light stand.  Therefore, it is good to have a good mastery of setting your DSLR for non-flash photography before moving on to strobist shots.

Teresa did really well remembering and putting into use all the tips, knowledge, practices and advice I gave her over the course of our three lessons together.  She now has a fairly wide ranging skill set that she can build on herself with more solo practice.  We also got her established in a fairly seamless RAW workflow using Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop Elements 9.  I showed her the basic ways I edit a portrait by using the dodge and burn brushes especially.  

I look forward to seeing the infant photographs Teresa makes in the future and her continuing progress as a strobist photographer!