Ria & Bill with their Nikons during our first DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaOnce again due to the Honda Grand Prix going on in downtown St. Petersburg, I used the small park at the end of Coffee Part Bayou as the location for a DSLR Photography Lesson with husband and wife Bill & Ria and their pair of Nikons. It was my first time to see a vivid red Nikon D3100 body! It looked pretty cool. That was the DSLR Ria used during the lesson and Bill wielded the Nikon D90. Though I market my photography lessons as 1-on-1, they are available to pairs as well. It is actually nice teaching two people because that means I do not have to be the model for practice shots!
Being very familiar with Nikon menu settings it was no problem to get both their D90 and D3100 setup and ready to start making shots in the manner I do with my own Nikon D300. During the lesson we practiced how to frame a portrait shot to make best use of space and put the person in a flattering composition (i.e. not having the horizon bisecting their head). Many people's instinct is to center the subject, but putting the subject just off center even, like in the photo above, adds more interest and better use of negative space.
It was a real fun time introducing Bill and Ria to the manual DSLR world, where before they were just using the D90 in auto-mode. We already have our next lesson scheduled!
