Photography 101 Class 5. A Maine Photographer

This is my last post of the series of the Photography class I was teaching at the Westbrook Community Center.  We took a vote to fit 6 classes into 5 evenings, so that I wasn't the entertainment for Valentines Day dinner.  I'm guessing if I hadn't changed the schedule I may have been alone in class tonight, so I agreed that it was a good idea.

During our last class we didn't take any photos.  We learned about the +/- button on your camera, the exposure compensation one.  Here's a link.  http://www.westbrookcommunitycenter.org/info/
The link video explains that if you take a photo of a black curtain, the camera will overexpose it, because the camera "thinks" your photo is always 18% gray.  If you take a photo of a white curtain, the camera will underexpose it, again, because it "thinks" your photo is 18% gray.  We all know your camera doesn't "think" so that's where your thinking comes into play.  You know what you are photographing and what the photo should look like...so you need to use the exposure compensation to correct what the camera "thinks" it sees.

We also reviewed how to read the light meter in your camera when on the manual mode.  Here's a tutorial.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_613183&feature=iv&src_vid=gEfXs7G8eK4&v=Y9LHTekcozk
A bit slow to watch, but the facts are easy to understand.

I am planning a photo walk for us soon and I hope to have photos to share.  Until then, let me just leave you with a little visual.  Here is a "mistake" I took.  I was doing a dog photo shoot in the snow.  This was the first shot I took.  I took a quick look at my LCD screen and realized my settings were off and I was very overexposed.  I quickly changed my settings and continued taking photos with the correct settings.  When I sat down to edit, it didn't take me long to realize that the "mistake" I took was a pretty special photo...to this day one of my favorites.  See for yourself...and don't be afraid to get creative with your settings...you just might LOVE the results!!