Sunken Gardens

Andrea's second DSLR Photography lesson at Sunken Gardens

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Solid proof of a DSLR Photography lesson in Sunken Gardens, which lately is more sunken than garden!

Andrea's schedule changed allowing us to have our second DSLR Photography Lesson this week.  After having explored downtown Saint Petersburg in our first lesson, for the second we went to Sunken Gardens.  We started out reviewing some photographs of her dogs she had made in her backyard and what camera settings could have been used to improve their sharpness.  Later we put this to practical practice with me taking on the part of running dog!  

Another focus of this lesson was finding what light helps us get the best exposure, focus lock and color saturation.  Often photographing the flower in most direct sunlight is not as good as photographing the one next to it in shade.  We also added a new setting to our photographer's toolkit -- exposure compensation.  A flamingo was standing in direct sunlight, and with the usual acceptable camera settings, there was no detail in the feathers.  So I had Andrea adjust the exposure compensation on her Nikon D3000 to -0.07 and then in the next shot we could see details in all the flamingo's feathers and more of the feathers' pink color.

We have already booked our next lesson (thank you Andrea!), and thankfully Andrea will be bringing her dogs as we will go to Ft. Desoto's Dog Park and Dog Beach, which means I do not have to do anymore running!  

DSLR Photography Lesson #2 with Danielle in Sunken Gardens

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Danielle making a Nikon D80 look stylish during our DSLR photography lesson in Sunken GardensI often find that I never exactly know what will happen in one of my DSLR Photography Lessons.  And I like that.  I feel that keeping the lesson content and structure fluid allows me to adapt the lesson on the fly to what the photography student specifically needs or wants to learn that lesson.  

Thus, Danielle and I began our second lesson today in Sunken Gardens with an in-depth conversation about what settings might have better helped her make portraits of her son's school classmates and how to take the first steps toward potentially making some money from photography in the semi-near future.  I did not have this planned, but I think it turned out to be a very productive use of our lesson time.  

My plan was for Danielle to practice making photographs using her tripod, which I learned was given to her by her father.  The tripod was of a certain vintage, i.e. a bit old.  As she was setting it up I started to feel uncomfortable about her putting her Nikon D80 on it.  My gut was right, as a leg fell right off the tripod!  So much for practicing tripod photography and won't the Sunken Gardens staff be surprised to see a large tripod in a trash can in the middle of the gardens!

It was all for the best as we had plenty of new photography ground to cover, the most useful of which I feel was how flash can radically improve outdoor photography.  I had Danielle photograph a flower in semi-shade without flash, which looked ok.  Then I had her useonly the D80's built-in popup flash to eliminate shadows and expose details in the flower that just were not present in the non-flash photo.  I was even surprised by the improvement.  

In an exciting note, Danielle will be investing in some new photography gear that we will put to good use in our next DSLR photography lesson.  I literally get just as excited about somebody else getting new photo gear as I would getting it myself!  

Thanks to Danielle for asking so many good questions during the lesson, which actually makes my job easier.  The time went by quickly. 

DSLR Photography Lesson with Dina at Sunken Gardens

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DSLR Photography Lesson with Dina at Sunken Gardens in Saint Petersburg

Most of my DSLR Photography Lessons are in downtown Saint Petersburg, but this time I started out my photography week with a lesson at lush and shady Sunken Gardens with Dina.  She was already a competent photographer and capable with her Nikon D60 and Nikkor 18-50mm and 70-300mm lenses, so what we focused on during our lesson were a few finer points of what light to look for and how to get a sharp focus across a variety of on and off tripod situations.  This was yet another fun lesson for me.

As part of my DSLR Photography Lessons, I include a portrait of the student.

We also practiced macro photography a lot during our lesson.  One may think macro photography is one of the easier types of photography, but in reality it is really tricky and takes a great deal of patience and skill to do well out in the field.  

Thanks to Dina for driving across the bay for our lesson!

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