I've been seriously practicing photography since 2013, but this weekend was the first time I had ever attended a photography class.
Sure, I had watched YouTube tutorials on photography tips and instructions on how to use my camera, but for me, as a hands-on learner, it helps for me to physically take a course with an instructor I can ask questions to and receive feedback.
A few months ago, I had contacted the Birmingham School of Photography because it was the only place I could find it my area that offered photography classes for beginners. Even though I've been playing around with still photos for a while, a lot of the time it's on my iPhone and I've been nervous about operating my DSLR. What do all the buttons do? How do I set my camera up in the menu? Why can't I get the picture I want to take?
I was hoping not to embarrass myself with this class, but of course, on the first day (of two), I forgot my SD card. I had taken it out of my camera and put it into my card reader to pull off my Dragon Con pictures and had forgotten to re-insert it back into the camera. I felt pretty dumb about it, but because of my goof up, the instructor gave me the advice to take a picture before I leave the house. That way, you'll know if you don't have a battery or an SD card. The camera will notify me if they aren't in the camera. I'll make sure to do that every time I grab my gear in a hurry.
On our first day of the Intro to Digital Photography class, we talked about SD cards (surprisingly helpful to know that the SDXC is the one to aim for and it just so happened that that's the one I had) and how to maintain them, lenses, image quality, color space, menu settings, metering, and of course, ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture.
On our second day, we took a field trip to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens to put everything we learned in class into real world application. I was excited about this, but also nervous. I can compose a shot all day long, but the metering aspect of photography was new to me and I was worried I wouldn't expose my shots correctly. As it turns out, well...I didn't. Several times, I broke a big rule about not letting the Shutter Speed go below 1/60. Some of my shots were blown out and overexposed or too dark and underexposed. Sometimes, I used my gray card at the wrong time and at other times, I used a neutral object to meter on incorrectly.
When our field trip was over and we got back to the Birmingham School of Photography, our instructor looked at the pictures we took. I was a little gutted that the shots I thought were kind of okay got heavily criticized due to the poor metering job I had done. The instructor was right, though. They weren't exposed correctly. I hadn't done a good job and I don't and won't benefit from someone pretending otherwise. Thanks to my classes this weekend, I know how to better focus in manual mode and change my settings when I need to, but I also appreciate the honesty on what I didn't do well in because it gives me my next step. I know what I need to work on. Now, I just need to take more classes!