Lessons

Each year the Mountaineers offer a basic photo class. For the month of March dozens of photo volunteers with the Mountaineers help students understand the workings of their cameras and begin to see composition and light and to explore their creativity. It's a lot jam-packed into 4 weeks of class lectures and outdoor workshops.


But if you are at all interested in taking a photo class, it's one of the best for the time and money. You learn as much in one month as I did my 1st quarter taking college photography classes. Often the workshops have an exceptional student to volunteer ratio - often 3 students to one instructor so students can get individual instruction on their cameras and technique.

It's always a joy to me to volunteer for these classes. In the first few workshops after a couple of tough lectures on exposure, they look at the camera in their hands with confusion and at times dread. We actually expect them to take the camera off the safe setting of Auto and figure out exposure on their own.

With a little coaching most students begin to play and explore what their cameras can do. It's the light in their eyes as they begin to understand exposure and how their camera captures light that brings me back every year.

This year, for the 1st outdoor workshop at the Washington Park Arboretum, I was able to tag along with one gentleman (we had enough volunteers to give the students a 1 to 1 1/2 ratio) who knew his camera pretty well. He was taking the class to work on his composition. So that is what we did.

We'd look for compositions, large & small, throughout the park. At one point, we ended up under the bridge and I just stopped to look at the lines and textures. He had gone on, and I hurried to catch up with him. On our way back he stopped to make a few images of what I saw. But after we parted ways I grabbed my camera to make my own image.

When we later compared images we were able to compare how each of us interpreted the scene differently. I liked the drama of his version emphasizing the drama of the arch. But I also like my version above emphasizing the textures.