A few months ago, I bought a Nikon D3100 digital SLR camera but so far, except for a few times when I was following a book tutorial, I haven’t taken it off auto so, when Joe Blogs Network asked me if I’d like to attend a DSLR workshop they were holding in collaboration with Currys and Canon, I was in there as quick as a flash (sorry, couldn’t resist!)
The workshop was held by Paul Hames – an award-winning photographer with over 25 years’ experience.
Paul went through all the techy stuff like aperture and exposure and speed and light and all that kind of thing, showing us how to change the settings on our own cameras. Unfortunately, at first, whenever I changed my settings, all I got was blank black photos and yes, I had taken the lens cap off. My camera eventually decided to play nicely (or, more likely, I finally managed to press the right button) and I could see the different results and effects you can get by changing the settings. After we’d gone through the theory, it was time to go outside and get some practice in.
We spent a while taking photos around Granary Square and the pond in King’s Cross and then headed back to warm up with tea and croissants (it was bloody freezing, despite it being June), while Paul gave another presentation containing tips for framing a shot and getting an interesting photo, then he rounded off the day by showing us some of the photos he’d taken in different genres, e.g. action, portrait, landscape, etc.
It was a great day; I learnt a lot and now hopefully I can start to turn this blog into something less ‘snaps of my dinner’ into something more resembling ‘food photography’.
Thanks to Joe Blogs Network for the invitation, Currys and Canon for allowing the workshop to happen and to Paul Hames for his interesting, informative and entertaining workshop.
(p.s. Unfortunately, I can’t show you any of the photos I took on the day because my PC has died and I can’t get access to my hard drive at the mo. I am keeping my fingers crossed it is ‘at the mo’ and not ‘I will never see the contents of my hard drive again’.)
