Some thoughts so far ...

Having completed some of the exercises and started to scope out ideas for the first ‘Contrasts’ assessment, I have been thoroughly enjoying myself ... even to the extent that I have been putting more energies into the course than into my wildlife photography.  It might take a back seat tomorrow as there is snow falling, and I’m not going to be able to resist that as far as photographing events outside goes!  Still, maybe I’ll even work a bird photo into the course somewhere, although I am trying not to revert to type too quickly!

I read through Michael Freeman’s ‘The Photographer’s Eye’ before I started the course, and over the last few days I have dipped back into it as far as the elements I have covered to date are concerned;  it makes at lot more sense to me now that I have physically done some of the things he discusses, especially around placement in the frame and depth and perspective.  As I go along, I’ll try and shoot a couple of sequences in a similar style to those used as examples in the book.  Rice farmers and salt panners are not that prevalent round here, but I’m sure the local area will have something to offer ..

I’ll even confess to moments of enlightenment .. as I’ve been looking round possible locations and considering ideas for later parts of the course I have actually started to see things in a different way – maybe I never looked before, and now that I have to be aware of opportunities for potential shots, I have actually started to spot elements of design, colour combinations, shapes, contrasts etc.  I really thought it would be difficult – after all, that’s ‘art’ isn’t it, and I don’t/can’t/won’t do art, but I seem to be spotting things all over the place.  Really surprised!

Blogging .. I’ve maintained a blog before, so the mechanics are familiar, although the more recent improvements to Blogger needed a little investigation.  The placement of photographs could do with being rather less random, as they do seem to move at will on occasions .. either that or I’ve missed something somewhere.  The ‘lightbox ’carousel option I like.

Missing opportunities to take shots for later elements of the course was something that concerned me, and there is no way I am going to remember all the requirements in the course folder.  So what I have done is scribble out a series of flow charts which give me a simple ‘one stop’ overview of what I’m supposed to be doing.  Here’s an example of the first part of the course running up to ‘Contrasts’ ..

So, overall a positive start on limited time.  Real work is not going to give me that many hours a week for the course, but I hope to keep up reasonable momentum and deliver the first assessment within a couple of months of setting out if I can.  I would certainly have liked to select some more ambitious subjects for the initial exercises, and hopefully as the days get longer, more options will start to open up for that.