More from the Photography Workshop

I signed up for the photography workshop with Kyle Cassidy this past weekend on a rather spur of the moment basis last week. Kyle posted on his blog on Wednesday that he was going to be in Toronto teaching and I checked out the details, but had decided I couldn't attend as I didn't have most of the required items. In particular, I don't have a digital SLR camera and it has been years since I used my regular SLR. The next morning, I was still thinking about the course and wishing I could go, so I decided to email the organizer and ask her if everthing on the list was mandatory. She was very helpful and advised that the other attendees were also beginners/intermediate and that it would be no problem for me to share a camera, so I signed up. Then I had to rush out and buy a portfolio book (which involved an hour's drive in rush hour traffic to the closest Henry's location), download a dozen or so of what I thought to be my best photos to Wal-mart's website to be printed as 8x10's and then pick them up at the store.

I am really glad I did sign up, as it was a good way to refresh my camera knowledge from 15? 20? years ago (what was an f stop again?) and by having to use other people's cameras, I got a chance to check out a few different models and see what they were like. One thing I love about the move to digital is the way you can see your image immediately after you take it, no more waiting for the film to be developed! You can also delete the bad shots right away and/or take several more pics if the first one doesn't turn out. The other amazing development in camera technology is the fact that the f stop and amperture information plus a whole bunch of other helpful stuff is displayed either on the LCD screen or inside your viewfinder, and when you download the photo to your computer, that same information is stored and readily accessible - no more having to write down what settings you used! Ah, freedom!!

One of the things Kyle told us was that he likes to photograph ordinary things and add something unusual in the shot. For example, in this photo, he had Shana pose in her very cool 70's print dress with a vacuum cleaner, doing the suburban housewife thing, and then had her throw a ball up in the air. My photo is taken just after she released the ball, so you can tell she has just tossed it but in Kyle's print (not shown), the ball is in motion and her arm has returned to her side, so it looks like the ball is just hovering in the air above her head, you don't really know where it came from (and there you have it, folks, that's what makes the magical difference between the professional's photo and the amateur's!)

In this next photo, he was throwing a dump truck into the camera frame while Shana posed glamourously and someone else was taking the photo. I'm not sure how the final shot turned out but I like this behind the scenes view (and no, he didn't throw the truck at Shana, it just looks like it's about to hit her in the face!)