Information from David about your day

The day starts with a brief discussion of where we are all at on our photography journey, a little presentation on the theory we need for the day around exposure vs shutter speed vs ISO, to ensure we are all on the same page, then a chat over creativity and composition before we visit one / two sites locally.

Still Life and Product Photography Workshop

We will focus on building impactful images that communicates well to any given audience. This might be an artistic composition or an image designed to show off a piece of artwork to it’s full potential. We will work though building subject, composition, lighting, camera settings, phone capabilities, editing, and publishing.

For the workshop you will need as much as possible of the following. Don’t worry if you don’t have anything here - I will provide some kit to fill gaps.

• A smartphone with reasonable camera

• A tablet or laptop (if you have time, install the Adobe Lightroom software (trial version is free).

• A camera

• A tripod

• A lead or card reader to transfer images from your camera to device.

• For all of the above, please ensure the batteries are fully charged and / or you have a charger.

• If you have any specific objects or artworks, yours of otherwise, do bring them along. Also if you have at fabrics or other portable backgrounds you think might work, also bring them.

What you need to bring kit wise for the photography in nature course

The course is going to be more about composition, simplification of the natural world in photography and creativity than a very technical learning of kit exercise so we won’t need a great deal of lenses.

Talking of lenses, if you have a camera with interchangeable lenses, we will be tending towards standard to slight zoom range in order to frame and isolate natural scenes, so we will work in the range (full frame) of 24-200mm. There is no harm in bringing more lenses in the car but for the walking element of the course will be try and carry only a couple of lenses, water, a snack and a tripod (if available). There is no requirement for a tripod on this course but having one does open up options for a wider range of shots. No filters are required on this course.

Bring a memory card big enough to store at least 100 shots at your camera’s max quality (RAW ideally). And don’t forget to charge your batteries. Bring a bag to hold your kit. If you have a laptop/card reader with Adobe Lightroom, this will be very useful for the end of the course, as I end the day doing a quick showcase of processing some images from the day in Lightroom.

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Clothing

In terms of clothing - be prepared for a cool day with light drizzle though to hot sun. Wales can be quite changeable. Come wearing sturdy footwear such as light weight summer walking boots as we will be on our feet for the main part of day. We also suggest you bring warm clothes and wet weather gear. Some other things you might want to bring are binoculars and sun cream!

Packed lunch

You will probably be eating your lunch on location… so please bring a packed lunch with you, as well as drinks and ‘in-the-field’ snack such as cereal bars.

Photography locations

The exact locations are weather dependent but may include Lady Bagot's Drive and the Offa’s Dyke area of the Clwydian hill range. In less favourable weather will be visit one of these locations and spend time in the studio building still life natural compositions to photography and look at editing RAW files in Adobe Lightroom.

Car sharing

If COVID guidelines allow, we will ideally car share to locations… but please do let us know if not comfortable having others in your cars as this is totally understandable. Please bring masks and hand gel for car share.