Photography TUITION
I have nearly 20 years experience as a professional photographer to share with you.
I can help with equipment advice including software and suitable devices, getting started with your new gear and the techniques I use that will improve your image making.
I can help you focus on your main interest areas and recommend specialised equipment, if optimal, to match that interest.
I can guide you with building stories so that you can make a pleasing photobook or slideshow of your holiday images or family milestone event.
I can provide this training at my studio or at your home or place of work. One-on-one or as a group.
Many people now need to document events during their working day. Perhaps you are a teacher using your iPad or smartphone to record the daily achievements of your students. How to you get the image onto StoryPark or Seesaw or any of the other web-based family information apps. Why are they too dark? Why are they blurry? The principles I teach are the same whether you have the top of the range Canon or you only have the work-supplied tablet or your phone. The light we have to work with is the same, though that Canon has an advantage when the light levels start to drop from bright sunlight.
We will look at the limitations of the tablets and phones and how to work with them. I have an iPhone X and I think it is amazing considering how small the sensor is and how tiny the lenses are. And it’s 12 megapixels. Compare that with my first digital Canon SLR was 3 megapixels (2001) and it could produce some great results.
Why do my people’s faces look distorted? I want to blur the background like the Pros but it is always sharp…why is that?
Post - production software
LIGHTROOM
Lightroom was specifically designed for Photographers. It’s a powerful RAW image file processor while also being able to process other file formats such as TIFF, Jpeg or PNG. It’s a visual processor in that many of the controls work as sliders with instant feedback on the change without having to understand the maths behind the process. Sure, Curves are in there but it is an additional option for those more familiar with the workings of the main Photoshop software. As a professional photographer my workflow is 90% Lightroom to 10% Photoshop. Lightroom is a database driven image content software meaning that you can view previously imported images whether they are currently available on your hards drives or Cloud or in fact whether they have been moved to a back-up drive for example. This is a main difference with Photoshop/Bridge where moved images do not appear in an image list.
PHOTOSHOP/BRIDGE
Photoshop is the Big Kahuna of Manipulation software. I have been using it since 1991. It’s one of those softwares that still contains the original features but has been added and added to over the years. It is what we call a pixel editor… we can remove or add pixels to an image as we desire to create your vision for the image. It uses the same RAW image processor as Lightroom. These are updated regularly as new cameras come to the market. It is not a software only for Photographers. It is used extensively by graphic designers and by other professionals such as engineers, architects and movie makers. It works in combination with Adobe Bridge which assists in viewing the collection of images that are currently on your drives attached to your computer or on your Cloud service. Lightroom complements Photoshop but is not essential to its operation.
GIMP
GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. In other words it has many of the features of Photoshop but not the price tag. I am currently learning this software. It works much the same as Photoshop so I am currently matching the tools and menu options from GIMP to what I am more familiar with in Photoshop.