Photography Lessons

Canon 60D & Canon T3i DSLR Photography Lesson St. Petersburg Florida with Danny & Doug

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Left to Right: Doug with Canon 60D & Danny with Canon T3i during our DSLR photography lesson in St. PetersburgFirst off, I did not pose Doug & Danny like that in the above photo!  I did show them proper DSLR camera holding technique earlier which is why their stances look so similar.  Their lesson was the companion lesson to the one their wives took at the end of May with the same cameras, a Canon 60D and a Canon T3i.  Both lessons started out the same, though most of my lessons do, but as seen in the photo above we spent more practice on photographing moving subjects which they both seemed to like doing very much.  

Our lesson started at 9am to avoid the now near full-on Florida summer heat with us meeting in downtown St. Petersburg and over the course of the lesson we passed by many local points of interest like the Museum of History.  We ended our lesson by the two large banyan trees on Beach Drive for a little flash portrait practice, concluding a jam packed 2-hour photography lesson that was a lot of fun and I hope keeps Doug and Danny using manual mode for the most part!

Canon XS 1-on-1 indoor light DSLR Photography Lesson with Suzanne St. Petersburg Florida

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Suzanne relaxing after we finished our fourth 2-hour DSLR photography lesson together!When Suzanne bought her 4-pack of 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons in October of last year, I did not imagine we would only have the fourth one now in June!  This, though, has allowed her to add a valuable new piece of equipment to her gear bag, a Canon 430EX II Speelite which she wanted to learn to use in indoor settings.  For that I have brought students to Tyrone Mall in the past, however, this time may have been the last time possible for it as we first got kicked out of Sears then later (thankfully at the end of the lesson) from the entire mall itself!  In my times there before no one has said anything to me.  Still, we were able to practice all I wanted to show Suzanne with regards to using the directional, or bounce, abilities of her external flash.  

We even found a closed store that had tall, black velvet drapes blocking its entrance that made for a studio-like background.  After that we used a nook hidden in a hallway to see how bouncing the light off a rear wall, a side wall and straight ahead effects light on the subject (in this case me!).  I pointed out that having shadows on the face of the subject is not always bad and the headshot practice we did should hopefully allow her to make a better one of her brother-in-law, that is if he does not take advantage of my own $99 headshot service!

I enjoyed my lessons with Suzanne and perhaps we will meet again for more advanced off camera flash and digital photograph editing lessons!

Canon 7D 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Jess

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Jess with her Canon 7D and 24-105mm lens in North Straub Park during our DSLR photography lessonOn an overcast evening in downtown St. Petersburg I met Jess with her Canon 7D for our first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson.  She has taken group photography lessons before with a local photography organization, so she had pretty good knowledge of basic photography terms and ideas.  It's just that those group classroom classes suffer from one serious flaw - you do not actually get out and shoot with the instructor.  To me it's like taking a piano lesson, but not playing the piano during the lesson!  

So during our 2-hour lesson all out in the field with our cameras on, I helped Jess organize the knowledge she already had while showing her how aperture, shutter speed and ISO relate to each other when shooting in manual mode.  Before the lesson she had mentioned issues with getting in focus shots, so I made sure to switch her 7D from the awful auto-point selection to the very reliable single, center focus point method I use and trust myself, even though my own Nikon D300 has an available 51-point autofocus option.  

We ended with using her Canon 430EX II Speedlite for a brief intro to flash portrait making.  I even showed her how to use her Canon 7D to trigger the speedlite off camera using the built in lighting system with the pop-up flash!  After a very info packed 2-hours Jess now has a lot of new knowledge to use when photographing her baby son!

1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Canon T1i with Kristin

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Kristin & her Canon T1i which we used almost exclusively in manual mode during our photography lessonCloudy skies made for an almost pleasant temperature during my first of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons with Kristin and her Canon T1i in downtown St. Petersburg.  She has had her DSLR for over a year, but like many people that take my lessons, had pretty much only been using it in its various auto-modes.  DSLRs like to be told what to do, so I quickly got to work preparing her to at least shoot in aperture priority mode, but really to just make the step to full manual mode.  It is surprisingly easy to make that leap if one keeps in mind there are only five things that need to be set to make any given photograph.  

As in most of my first lessons with a student, we covered a wide range of topics from how to properly change lenses, to discussing what gear she might want to buy next, to creating shots with bokeh before ending with a little motion blur practice.  The lively goings on of downtown St. Pete on a Thursday evening (movies in the park) made for an enjoyable atmosphere to practice photography.  

Kristin took good notes and asked questions when she needed to so I expect she will absorb a lot of what we practiced tonight.  Our next lesson is already scheduled for next Thursday!

1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson 50mm lens in St. Petersburg Florida with Rebecca

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Rebecca using her new 50mm f/1.8 lens during our 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaSince our second 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson back in February, Rebecca has been pretty active visiting New York and picking up a new 50mm f/1.8 lens.  We used that 50mm lens exclusively during our third of four photography lessons in downtown St. Petersburg.  In our first two lessons we mostly used her 18-55mm lens on her Canon Xsi.  So we began this morning's 50mm lesson discussing what unique settings and subject matter best suite the lens.  Where before the largest aperture available to Rebecca was f/5.6, suddenly being able to go all the way to f/1.8 meant that creating bokeh was no longer a problem, however, since the depth of field was so shallow there was no more simple setting the focus and recomposing when making a shot.  Instead I instructed Rebecca to frame the shot how she wanted, then move the single focus point upon the part of the shot she wanted to be in focus.  Since sometimes the DoF could be as small as a few millimeters, recomposing even slightly after setting the focus could result in an out of focus subject.

We also stayed in manual mode the entire time which allowed me to teach Rebecca how to use her DSLR's meter to set the shutter speed and aperture to produce a well exposed shot.  Then I showed her how to manipulate those settings to purposefully produce an overexposed shot when so desired, as in the above shot I made of Rebecca.  She was standing in shade and the background was bright sunshine, so I just set the shutter speed to 1/60th to blow out the background but expose the subject (Rebecca).  This is a clever way to create a studio-like white background portrait in the middle of a sidewalk.

For our fourth lesson we will head out to The Pier for some bird in flight photography!

Canon 60D & Canon T3i DSLR Photography Lesson St. Petersburg Florida with Brooke & Liz

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This kapok tree has often been a test subject during my DSLR photography lessons in downtown St. PetersburgMy DSLR Photography Lesson with Brooke and her mom, Liz, was my first 9am lesson of the year as things are just getting too hot to start at 10am anymore.  We met at the usual downtown St. Petersburg spot in front of the Museum of Fine Art where we sat and had an introductory chat on how to set the major settings on Brooke's Canon 60D and Liz's Canon T3i.  I am familiar with both DSLRs so it was not difficult to switch back and forth from one camera to the next for instruction purposes.  They also had the exact same Canon 18-135mm lens which made things even more uniform.

I emphasized proper DSLR holding technique which not only results in a more stable shots, but also better ergonomics for changing settings and focal length while one's eye remains in the viewfinder.  We practiced our first shots on the kapok tree next to the museum before moving on to how to make a shot with bokeh.  We continued with how to photograph moving subjects before concluding with tips for making flash portraits in the shade.  All in all it was a very information packed 2-hour lesson!

I enjoyed our lesson this morning and actually I will teach their husbands in an upcoming lesson, which should be pretty interesting!

Aperture 3 Workflow Digital Photography Lesson on MacBook Pro St. Petersburg Florida

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Bill learning my Aperture 3 workflow right from my desk also getting emotional support from Kiki!Last week Bill came over to my apartment for a digital photography workflow lesson based on Aperture 3.  This was my sixth time meeting up with Bill, but the first to focus on the part of digital photography that happens after you return from shooting, which is just as important as learning how to shoot out in the field.  Once you start taking 200, 300, 400+ photos on any given outing with your DSLR then workflow and photo management becomes critical in making sure you showcase your best images and can find them one year down the road.  

After Kiki gave Bill an enthusiastic greeting, we opened up our MacBook Pros at my desk and I went step-by-step with Bill first getting my preferred Aperture 3 settings into his version, and then showing him what you do once you insert a memory card into the SD slot on the side.  Upon photo import in Aperture 3 you can imprint a lot of very useful metadata, as well as rename the files (so all your shots are not _DCC457) and put them into a new project to start off your workflow with good orginization.

Bill had photos from his daughter's prom night pre-dance getogether at his own home for us to use.  I showed him my culling process for picking the best shot out of 3-4 similar shots.  This involves a star-rating system and then a side-by-side full-screen comparison of shots.  We finished the lesson with using some of the handy sliders and brushes in Aperture 3 to make the first round of edits on a given digital photograph.