"Composition and Light" Photography Workshop

How to make your photos sing! For good photos, you need good composition. For great photos, you need great composition. And great light.

Your camera is good at getting some of the technical things right, such as exposure and focus, but YOU are totally responsible for the creative input: where to stand, where to point the camera, which lens, and – perhaps most important of all – “seeing” the photo and then composing it, refining it until it’s as good as you can make it.

There are many things that you can correct in Photoshop/Lightroom if you didn’t get them quite right at the time, but composition is not one of them. You’ve got to get it pretty much right when you press the shutter. A photo whose composition is fundamentally flawed usually cannot be rescued, even by diligent use of Photoshop or Lightroom.

It’s a big and somewhat complex subject, though some “rules” [guidelines] have evolved to help get you going: the “rule of thirds”, “leading lines”, the “rule of odd numbers” etc. We’ll look at these rules and guidelines and then move past them, into “the New You” where great compositions and creativity can really flourish.

And light. Without light, there is no photography, of course, but it goes much deeper than that. A great subject in dull light will usually give you a dull photo. A not-very-exciting subject in great light can easily be a winner.

It’s a four-part workshop:
1. Saturday morning and early afternoon – the theory. The principles, the guidelines, and “rules” & when to break the rules. My “One Rule to Rule Them All”. A great mix of theory and practical exercises for you. Many finer points and tips.
Topics include:
• Finding clarity & meaning in the busy scene you’re standing in front of [“seeing” possibilities]
• Using composition to create order, clarity, and impact
• Foreground and background, depth of field, three-dimensionality
• The National Geographic style
• Why what your eye sees and what the camera sees are not the same
• Simplification. Minimalisation. Decluttering
• What your eye is drawn to in photos
• The crop tool - your new best friend
• Patterns, textures, repetition, symmetry
• Lines, curves, diagonals
• Balance, visual weight
• Relationships, negative space
• Framing
• The golden ratio, golden mean, Fibonacci spirals - yes or no?
• Flash - graduating from amateur flash to pro flash
• Light - the different kinds. The good and the bad. Dealing with “bad” light
• Black and white, monochrome, colour palettes [limited, bold, pastel etc]
• Colour - a painless introduction to colour theory
• Using colour palettes to create your own style
• Colour and mood
• Perfect light for your portraits

2. Later Saturday afternoon – the practice. We’ll be photographing a variety of subjects with the emphasis on getting your composition looking good great.

3. Assignment. You will then have 2-3 weeks to put what you’ve learned into practice. I will give you a series of assignments that will help consolidate what you’ve learned. Photographers report that they find this really useful.

4. We meet again [at a time that suits everybody, probably a weekday evening] to look at and evaluate your assignment photos. This evaluation can be done by email if you’re from out of town.

Venue: Kim’s comfortable workshop studio [18 Greerton Road, Gate Pa, Tauranga] plus field trip TBA

Cost: Full course fee [which includes tuition, hand-outs, yummy catering, assignment, and follow-up] $245.