Photography for Beginners
Friendly lessons to help you get the most out of your DSLR!
Not sure where to start?
Phtography Lessons in Crewe + Nantwich, Cheshire.
If you’re looking for a way to learn how to get to grips with your camera, or learn more about photography, I’d love to help you!
Maybe you just don’t know where to start at all?
Perhaps you’ve found that you can’t rely on your DSLR’s auto setting, and that your phone camera seems to give you more consistent results?
This great big thing with all these buttons and dials, seemingly defeated by your mobile! That’s because, whilst your DSLR is pretty smart, it’s not quite smart enough. And auto just won’t do it in many situations.
Learning how to use your DSLR can seem daunting and I totally understand why. There is rather a sharp learning curve to overcome when you first start trying to use your camera. This mainly revolves around understanding how to get a proper exposure. Without this knowledge, you’re pretty stuck, it’s true.
I can teach you how to get a balanced exposure and explain clearly how to use your camera’s:
Corresponding Lens Aperture
Once you understand how these settings work, you’ll have control of the “exposure triangle”. Giving you a firm basis to move your photography forward!
Getting off of auto is well worth it. Your DSLR is a actually a powerhouse of creativity waiting to be unleashed. You just need to learn how.
Then you can really get into shooting images that will capture a moment in time and show the beauty, the true emotion, or any other important aspects of the scene you are photographing as effectively or dramatically as possible.
Whether that’s your children and life at home, special occasions, family holidays, when traveling, or for work or anything in between.
My main love is portrait photography (as you will no doubt gather from my website here!), so that can be part of the focus of your classes if that suits you. If you’re interested in taking better photographs of your newborn, your toddler or your growing family, I can really help you get a head start with this.
I can give you all kinds of tips and advice, things that I’ve picked up or figured out during the last 6 years of working as a family photographer.
If your main interest in photography is elsewhere, I can still teach you everything you need to know to get off of auto and start documenting whatever is important to you. Whether that’s travel, pet, product or landscape photography, street photography or any other area of photography.
Maybe you’re not sure what exactly it is you find appealing about photography at this point but just want to learn? Well, I can help you with that too. Your “thing” is out there waiting for you, you just need to start looking.
Personalised lessons to learn about photography and to help you get to grips with your DSLR.
Learn what you want to learn, at your own pace.
I offer one-to-one private lessons which give you a direct, hands-on approach to learning how to use your camera. I can help you work your way through those menus and settings on your DSLR until you become a master of them all!
Before your first lesson, I’ll find out from you what you know already. If you’re an absolute beginner, no problem… that’s what the lessons are for! You can also let me know if there is anything in particular you’re interested in taking photographs of, I can then tailor your lessons to suit you.
- How the light gets in - how the camera functions and records light.
- Getting started: The exposure triangle: ISO, Shutter Speed + Apertures.
- Reliable Focusing Techniques for sharper images.
- White Balance, reading histograms, light metering and other useful tools.
- Composition techniques, getting creative with light, how to approach your subject, feedback on your photographs + more……
One-to-one lessons are £95 for a 90 minute session.
This gives us enough time to go over the theoretical aspects of each lesson, and then allows time to go and apply what you’ve learned by taking some photographs too.
Before you book, I offer a free consultation to find out more about what you know already and what you’d like to learn.
It’s also useful for me to know what camera/equipment you have. If you don’t have a camera yet, I can make recommendations to suit your budget.
You can also book a mini-lesson for your first session. Here we can get acquainted and put together a personalised plan for you to get started. You’ll be learning straight away too: I’ll give you some tips about what you need to learn first to get going, and can help with any problems you are having with your camera or answer any questions you might have.
We can outline what you need to learn in a logical order so that you can progress as quickly as possible.
The aim of the classes will be to teach you enough to get started with using your camera on the manual setting (goodbye auto!!). This will help you take creative control of the camera and understand how to get a properly exposed image in a range of settings. This course is suitable for absolute beginners, or anyone who is a bit unsure. The aim is to teach you more about the “exposure triangle” and improve your focusing techniques to help obtain, clearer, sharper and more creative images. This course will get you started with your DSLR.
Duration: 3 weeks.
When: Wednesdays 7-9pm, starting Wednesday 17th April 2019.
I’ll help you set up your camera so that it is using the best settings to get started with.
We’ll look at the different menus and learn which are the main controls we need to use to get started with (luckily, there are lots of things we don’t need to worry about to start off with!)
Learn how to gain the correct exposure. We do this by understanding how to use the manual setting and taking control of your camera’s ISO, shutter speed and aperture settings.
Sharper Focusing (selecting focus points and focusing modes).
This is for absolute beginners or anyone who is a bit unsure and would like to brush up on their skills. The main aim is to help you gain confidence with using the camera on the manual setting and to understand how to get a properly exposed, sharply focused image in whatever situation you are shooting.
Starts Wednesday April 17th, the cost is £99. Following completion of this course, you are also welcome to sign up for part 2 which will help reinforce your skills and learn more about your camera and photography in general.
Beginners - Part 2
Duration: 3 weeks.
When: Wednesdays 7-9pm, starting Wednesday 8th May 2019.
Composition tips and advice on how to take more creative images.
Which lenses for which situations?
How and when to use Auto modes, and when not to.
Thinking about types of light, advice on portraiture, landscape and other types of photography.
Advice on editing software and where to start and much more!!
All courses also have simple, but fun, homework tasks as we go along to help your new skills take root!
This is a follow-up course for beginners. It’s especially useful to start thinking about how to compose better images and be more creative with your photography once you have got to grips with the basics. My aim is to help you get the most out of your new skills and start doing more of the type of photography you’re interested in as you do. It’s time to get clicking!!