Photography Classes February 2003
Wanting to improve my photography skills, I figured some classes would be a help.
The University
of Canterbury
in
Christchurch offers continuing education classes during the summer
I signed up. Five
full days of Landscape Photography then, back to back, six days of digital developing (using
Photoshop). Just one free day in the middle for a bit of golf and a visit
with Dick.
I'm quite happy with the results, so here* are some of my images from class. Any of these pictures can be viewed full screen by clicking on the thumbnail.
The landscape class was really hard work.
I
was the only
person using a digital camera, so after each of our field trips (which
were all day
adventures into the country) when everyone else simply left their film for overnight developing, I
went home and "developed" my photos. Since I took about 100
shots each day, I ended up with at least two hours of
homework each night. It would have taken even longer if I hadn't already had so
much experience using the Olympus's Camedia program, which I find easy to use
and versatile.
The landscape
class took color photographs, color 
slides and
black and white photos. The other students varied their film, of course. But
my digital camera only takes
color images. Fortunately, making them into black and white photos is easy
-- merely a push of a
computer button. As for slides, which we used for the show and tell with
the other classes on the last day, I did a Powerpoint slideshow instead.
Photoshop
is a complex, expensive, memory-gobbling, multi-faceted, amazing program that keeps
getting better. It lets one do so many
things with an image that it takes quite a while to learn the basics.
My six days were just an introduction to the joys and frustrations of Photoshop 7.0. The frames
and mats, as well as some digital wizardry (such as burning, dodging, rubber
stamping and liquefying) were added to some of these photos using Photoshop.
I especially enjoyed making "Coffee Time?" FYI, the image of the
horses (above) was NOT manipulated. Sometimes one is just at the right
place at the right time.
I
love to learn new things. Hopefully future images posted on this
website will be even better, especially given my new computer tools and my "new" eyes.
*All images on this web page and this website are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without written permission. ©Witta Priester 2003.
The number of pixels used for posting web images works well for a computer screen, but it isn't good enough for printing, unless you want a small print. If you'd like to hang one of these photos on your wall, e-mail me and we can discuss it .