Digital photography course: 28 Jul-1 Aug 08

I’ve been an avid photographer for over 40 years and have grown up with a pretty good knowledge of the physics of analogue photography. I moved to digital about 2 years ago but worry that I don’t take full advantage of the technology. That’s why I’ve signed myself up for a week’s course at Cottenham Village College summer school.

The course is run by Malcolm Clarke an ex-news photographer who now likes an easier life of teaching people like me and taking photographs. As it says on his web-site … he is ‘available for commissions in Britain or anywhere in the world’. Nice work if you can get it.

There are 5 of us on the course so we get pretty good personal attention. So far its been a bit basic but I’ve relearnt some and had one of my fundamentals challenged. I was always told to take photographs with the sun behind me. Not right. If it’s behind the subject he or she (or it) doesn’t squint for starters and you get a nice ‘halo’ effect which sets the subject out from the background. And if the face is too dark then correct for this with fill-in flash!

We had an hour outside taking photographs; the theme was portraiture and some of my efforts are shown above. The one of the two girls was highly praised! I’ll add more photos over the week.

Day 2 was all about landscapes and scenery and we had a field trip to Wicken Fen. After the heat of the last few days it was much cooler with little sun and what might have been dramatic scenery at dawn or dusk or at other times in the year was rather uninspiring. We had a class challenge to photograph the windmill, which is a bit of a Wicken Fen icon, and otherwise we resorted to the local flora and fauna which were a little more interesting.

Today (Wednesday) the theme was sport so we spent an hour or so photographing swimmers and cyclists. Unless you’re at the Olympics or watching the Tour deFrance that’s not exactly exciting! With swimmers its all about anticipation; it’s too easy to photograph a diver’s feet because you’re too slow. And for cyclists, and runners, horses etc, the technique to master is panning whereby the subject stays in focus but the background is blurred giving the sensation of movement.

We were also challenged to compose a ‘panorama shot’ whereby several photographs of a wide scene are combined. The example above looks OK when it’s so small but blown up clearly shows the lesson I learnt today. If you’re intending to assemble a panorama shot don’t use a wide angle lens. Use a standard 35mm one to avoid divergent lines at the edge of each photograph.

Day 4 was a fun day. We were asked to go round the other classes at the summer school and take photographs of the painters, rug makers and upholsterers and anyone else who took our fancy. The theme was ‘documentary’ so we were trying to take photographs to tell a story. Easy for some crafts, more difficult for others. Learning experience of the day for me was the need to have a decent wide aperture lens. My standard zoom only goes down to f5.6 which isn’t really enough (a) for indoor available light shots and (b) blurring otherwise distracting backgrounds.

Day 5 and it’s off to the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge for a couple of hours of close up photography. But before we did anything we had to have a special pass for a tripod! As we entered via the Station Road exit that meant a quick march down to the office next to the Bateman Street exit which is just about as far away as you can get without leaving the gardens. There we had to provide proof of identity and then wait obediently whilst we were registered and issued with the requisite tripod pass. No signature, no promises of good behaviour, no money. A purely adminstrative inconvenience which added no value. Why?

The mission was to take nice close ups, which is not too difficult, and to photograph insects in flight. It’s straight forward taking the shots with the insects on the flower but it needs a combination of the right settings, good anticipation and a fair degree of luck to catch them in flight.  The challenge with close up photography is to make sure that the image is sharp and I assure you that the fly in the middle photo above is very sharp!

That’s it then. My week of learning is over and my enthusiasm for photography is reinforced. And for the anoraks who might be intersted: I use a Sony alpha 100 and none of the photographs above have been in any way cropped. It’s a sort of fetish of mine!