I went to my first photography class today. It’s called “Beginning Photography” and taught by a professional photographer. He’s be taking photos for 50 years and primarily shoots weddings now. We went over the basics of photography and how to use our cameras. It was a nice review and I feel pretty good about my basic knowledge of f-stops and shutter speed. I suppose reading all those photography books really did me some good.

So, my first assignment is to take 3 different photos with the subject with back lighting, front lighting, and side lighting. I’m also supposed to manually overexpose and underexpose each photo 2 f-stops…so I guess that makes 9 photos. Anyway, it’s really exciting to have assignments and to be working with 35 mm film again.

My goals:

• to become a stronger, faster “manual” photographer
• get a better understanding of darkroom techniques (so Photoshop makes more sense)
• learn how to use a gray card
• understand what makes a good black and white photo
• learn new tricks for problem lighting conditions
• gain new ideas on composition

OK. I have a lot of goals and none of them are measurable. I suppose their objectives then. I’m done rambling now.