What’s Covered in The Photographer’s Master Class
Quality of Light
Discover the most basic building block of photography, light. George Eastman once wrote that “Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.”
We break light into is three key elements, Brightness, Color, and Direction. There is so much more to each of these elements than meets the eye.
The camera options available to the photographer today seem endless. The most prolific camera on the planet is the camera phone. Today, everyone has a camera and everyone is a “photographer”, but the serious photographer knows you need advanced features to make truly high quality images. Analyze the features available on your camera that will help you improve your photography.
The Camera
The Lens
Your eye sees reality, but how much of this reality can a lens reproduce. Each lens has physical and technological limitations that seemingly allow you to see beyond reality. They help you focus on a subject, bring far away subjects closer, and see the world in a whole new perspective.
Exposure
What you see isn’t what you get. Determining a proper exposure involves both technical prowess and artistic flair. And, to master exposure you must fully understand the controls provided by your camera and how light behaves with your subject.
In this course you’ll cover the camera controls, including aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. You’ll also see how these settings are utilized in all of the cameras automatic shooting modes.
Most importantly, you’ll explore the metering systems that are used in most of today’s digital cameras.
Flash
Explore different light sources for your photography, including on-camera and off-camera flash. Learn how to control the three elements of light when you depend on a flash for all your light, or when you just want to add a hint of light to brighten up the shadows.
Modifying Light
As a photographer, you’re not stuck with the ambient light. Discover the tools used to modify the light to ensure your subjects look their best. Modifiers are designed to change one, or all the three elements of light. From simple reflectors to change the overall brightness, to gels and softboxes that change the light color and contrast.
Lighting Placement
How the light falls on your subject has a tremendous influence on the image’s visual impact. Whether an image in appealing depends a lot on the patterns of light and shadow at play on your subject. Artists have long know that certain light patterns can dramatically influence the emotional feeling one gets when viewing an image. Discover what these patterns are and how to create them whether you’re in a studio on outside. Learn why Lighting Ratios are important to learn and why, at times, you need to forget about them.
Composition
To some, photography is an exercise in empirical science. But, the images create are really an artistic way to tell a story and when you follow solid compositional rules, the results can be stunning. Learn about the eight driving principles of artistic designs such as creating balance in an image. Understanding how the elements of art influence an images proportion, harmony and unity.
To develop a well composed image you utilize many elements of art. These are not exclusive to photographers. Any artist can utilise elements such as Line, Shape, and Form.
Color Theory
Understanding color is critically important for today’s successful photographic storytellers. Color is an extremely powerful driver of human emotion. In fact, it is the first thing people notice about a person’s work or product. Successful photographers learn to take advantage of this fact.
You’ll study color theory and understand how to blend colors in your image to evoke a desired response from the viewer. Learn how colors interact - which play well together and which don’t.
Post Processing
Once you capture a digital image in your camera, you can then polish the image on your computer. Learn how to ensure that what you see on your camera is what you see when you download the image onto your computer. Discover a workflow that will help you make the most efficient and effective modifications to your image.
Explore the different file formats that are best for photographers. Learn how to best name your files and de-mystify the world of “resolution”.