My First Macro Photography Class today...

Today I went to my first Macro Photography class through Inbeaute Photography. http://www.inbeautephoto.com/classic/Workshop.htm The class is taught by Karl Blomseth. There are about five of us in the class and the class will last a total of 5 Saturdays. I really enjoyed the class.

I got to use my new 105mm f/2.8 Nikon VR Mirco lens for the very first time. We had a few different things to shoot after Karl got done instructing what he wanted us to do today. It’s a good thing I shot in Raw because I forgot to change my white balance from Direct Sunlight that I use in my Basic Digital Photography Class on Tuesday nights to Auto. My next problem was I’ve never have edited my photos in RAW before but here are a couple examples from my class today. Hopefully soon I’ll be posting some acceptable examples, but in the meantime I’m learning.

Tomorrow I need to take some photos for my assignment in my Basic Digital Photography class.

Chuck

Basic Digital Photography Class Composition Homework Assignment

Last Tuesday evening, 01-20-09, I had my first Beginning Digital Photography class. John Pennoyer was the instructor. This course is held at the IFP Minnesota for Media Arts in St. Paul. It’s held four times and each class is 3 hours long.
John Pennoyer: http://www.impressionsofnature.net/about.html

There are 8 of us in the class. I was going to start off with the intermediate class; but there weren’t enough people signed up, so I decided to start at the beginning.

Our first homework assignment was Composition. We were to find a horizontal subject and then shoot our best horizontal composition, then centered horizontal composition and last a vertical composition of the same subject.

The vertical subject we are to do the same. Shoot the best vertical composition, centered vertical composition and then a horizontal composition.

I went out today when the temperature warmed up to 0 degrees. I went to the Coon Rapids Dam in Brooklyn Park to take my horizontal subject composition shots. Well, here they are:

Best Horizontal Composition

Centered Horizontal Composition

Vertical Composition of my horizontal subject.

Tomorrow, I'll look for a vertical subject.

Chuck

My First Lighting Workshop...

The Twin Cities Photography Club that I recently joined held a Lighting Workshop at one of the members (Luke Luther) studio in downtown St. Paul. It was held on Thursday, 01-15-09. There were approximately 12 of us who attended. http://photo.meetup.com/430/

This was my first experience with shooting with lights and a model. Most of my photos are of trees, rocks and water. I had no knowledge what I was doing a head of time. I did learn a lot, but I have so much more to learn. http://photo.meetup.com/430/photos/

Since the shoot I have been doing some studying. I’ve started to read, Light Science & Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver and Paul Fuqua.

I’ve also purchased the Nikon Schools DVD, A Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting with Bob Krist and Joe McNally. I found this DVD excellent.

Here are some of the photos I took that night. I want to thank Luke for allowing us to use his studio and equipment and to our model, Sharon.

Again, this was the my first experience at this.

Another try at the Moon!

Nikon D-80 w/ 70-200 f/2.8 VR
300mm , f/8 , 1/200 sec

I'm going to look for something closer to photograph next time. I was just trying to see what my new lens could do.

Chuck

Twin Cities Photography Club

I’ve wanted to take some photography classes for a while, but I just never got serious enough to look for some. Also, during the spring, summer and fall I’m usually busy doing some other outside physical activity, such as canoe racing, wilderness canoe trips, cycling, etc. and work/ job that there just isn’t enough time for some other things I would like to be doing. This winter I’ve been going to the health club just about everyday, but I haven’t gone x-country skiing.

In December I finally decided to check around for a photography club and classes in the Minneapolis area. Since I have a Nikon camera I joined the Nikonians Forum, http://www.nikonians.org/, and this is where I got the idea to look up a photography group on meetup.com. The post I was reading on the Nikonians forum said they don’t call them clubs anymore but meetups. Well, I found this Club on the meetup. The name of it is the Twin Cities Photography Club, http://photo.meetup.com/430/

Last Wednesday, 01-07-09, I attended their first board meeting for the year. There were about 10 to 12 of us. We all introduced ourselves and there was a wide range of photography experience within the group. I plan to go to some of the photo shoots as my time allows me to do so. This should expose me to other types of photography other than all the photos I take on my canoe trips.

In addition to the photography meetup group, I signed up for an advance marco photography class put on by Karl Blomseth of InBeaute Studio. This class is held at the studio. http://www.inbeautephoto.com/classic/Workshop.htm. Karl calls his workshops the Fertile Mind Foto Workshops. This class begins on Saturday, 01-31-09, and runs for 5 Saturdays.

I’m also attending another meetup class with the Minnesota Strobist group to do some studio work with off camera flash with live models. I’ve never done this before and it should be fun. There is another person who is involved with both meetup groups that offered to show me before hand the technique used for the Strobist group before the actual February 15 Strobist meetup. Hopefully I can do that in the next couple of weeks. Here are a couple links about the Strobist group. http://www.flickr.com/groups/mnstrobist/discuss/72157612200008415/ and http://strobist.blogspot.com/

I went out tonight and took a photo of the moon. I thought it was pretty good until I saw someone else’s photo of the moon on another forum. Oh well, it’s a good photo of the moon for me.

I will probably post some of my photos once I actually get out and take some.

Last week I received an e-mail from Bo Bowers aka QPassage who has Wilderness Passages CD Magazine. He wanted my permission to use my trip report, Quetico’s Trees, Rocks and Water: A Solo Journey in the next edition. http://www.bwca.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=forum.thread&threadId=50925&forumID=19&confID=1

Chuck