Your Life, Your Camera | Intro to DSLR Photography Workshop

Your Life, Your Camera a South Burlington, Vermont Photography Workshop…

This past weekend we taught another run of our introductory DSLR photography workshop, Your Life, Your Camera. Kristy and I wrote and began teaching this course in 2014 and it is exciting to see how much it has grown and the amazing local photography community that has been built as a part of this. We have met many so many amazing people along the way and love connecting with others who share the same passion for photography as we do.

We always ask for detailed feedback after each workshop and so much appreciate with our participants take the time to respond because it helps us make this workshop the best and most helpful it can be.

I get a lot of questions about our class and so I thought I would give a brief summary of what a day in the life of our workshop looks like…

What Does A Day In This Workshop Look Like?

Kristy and I spent a lot of time discussing how we could best use our four-hour workshop to educate and also allow for lots of hands-on assistance and practice. Our goal is for everyone to leave feeling more knowledgeable not only about photography but also about their own unique camera.

Kristy and I both shoot with Canon cameras but we are familiar with many brands including Nikon, Olympus, and Fujii We have some participants that come having some experience using their camera and some that have never even opened the box and we are able to work with both of these situations.

We start the class with introductions and a conversation about what makes a “good photo” and the emotional connection behind them. We then move into the more creative side of photography composition and engagement with your subjects.

A Presentation, Group Work & Hands-On Learning!

We have a powerpoint presentation that helps us explain this information as well as small group discussions to really make sure everyone is understanding the concepts. This part of the class is fun because these topics relate to any type of camera you are shooting with, even if it is your phone. Learning DSLR photography is a process and we love that this information can be taken away and used immediately to improve your overall creativity with photography as a whole.

The next part of our workshop discusses the more technical aspects of DSLR photography. We break down the exposure triangle and then discuss metering and how to choose your manual settings. Choosing your settings allows you to have full control over your camera versus letting your camera decide for you in automatic mode.

After discussing these topics we move into a visual demonstration and then allow all of our students to follow along as we set up different shots and then decide together what settings would work in different lighting situations. It is very important to us that this section of the class has enough hands-on practice to allow everyone to get comfortable with their own cameras and the concepts of metering. Due to our small class size, we are able to help each student individually as needed.

We gather together again to finish our presentation which includes a discussion on different types of natural light situations, choosing your ideal location, white balance, lenses, focal lengths, storage and editing program tips. This class does not cover a lot of discussion about editing.

Our Goal For Your, Life Your Camera

Our goal for Your Life, Your Camera is to teach you how to get the results you want so that when you do eventually move on to editing you are able to enhance your photos instead of trying to fix them. Choosing your manual settings allows you to take control over what your camera does instead of letting it guess on automatic mode. We want you to leave with the knowledge and confidence to keep shooting in manual after our class is over. Our class ends by talking about what’s next and then having more hands-on camera practice in small groups.

We do offer an intermediate and advanced DSLR class that many of our YLYC participants have taken. We are teaching another run of our intermediate class in March and I will make sure to share those details then. I hope you enjoyed hearing more about our class and please let me know or email us at kristy@kristydooleyphotography.com if you are interested in a future workshop. <3