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By , 18/04/2010 8:23 pm

And that was where the April Photography Workshop was conducted last weekend. The cafe mentioned is Tossz. specialising in sandwiches and salads. Here’s what Hungry Go Where has to say about it. It’s a very cosy place and ideal for a small class, and best of all situated near Chinatown with plenty of photo opportunities. There were altogether 6 participants so a place to plonk ourselves down, hook up a monitor and some paper for brainstorming was needed.

The class. Photo courtesy of Desmond

Demonstrating aperture selection via remote live shooting

The participants were a bit more advanced compared to the previous workshops so that allowed me to zoom past the basics and get into the more techie details. So we got past camera basics, lenses, mode settings and metering fast and concentrated more on actual shooting and critiquing. That was enough material for them to get on with the first assignment. They were tasked to play around with different aperture and shutter speed settings to pan and freeze motion. I was quite surprised to find that most of them use the M mode most of the time, and were quick in setting both the shutter speed and aperture.

The techie details

The techie details

Photo critique is a very important segment in any workshop because that allows each person to share their thoughts behind their images and also a great opportunity for me to guide them to get what they want. We spent a lot of time on it and moved on to composition after that.The second shooting assignment was much longer and they had to demonstrate the different compositional techniques. My stand has always been for them to know what the basic accepted composition techniques are and then to be creative in breaking them or using them for their needs. We had some really impressive shots.

At the critique session. Photo courtesy of Desmond

We wrapped up with an intro to flash photography and the effects of bouncing light off different surfaces to get even lighting vs shooting straight.

What happens to your subjects when you aim the flash directly at them

The next workshop is on 5 June. Please check out the details here. Places are limited because I believe in small classes to be effective. I can then spend more time with individuals rather than just address the entire class all the time. So do sign up fast!