Thank you to all of you who attended! And thank you SO MUCH to our fantastic model Jennifer G! If you need to book Jennifer G for an assignment, please contact her reps at IZON Models.

We’ll also have our Basic On-Camera Flash class on Thursday / March 21 from 5:45pm to 7:45pm.

To see our complete class schedule, click here! See you in class!

We always want to remind our readers that there are two main ways to stay in touch:

1) Our Email Newsletter

2) Follow us on Facebook

Thanks for visiting!
~ Charles

And coming up in March, we’ll post a reminder about our Basic On-Camera Flash class designed to teach the fundamentals of operating your flash.

Stay tuned!
~ Charles

The Pensacola Museum of Art. An “arty” shot, yes?

A lamp post, with a flag in the background.

Just a random gate that I found outside of the Pensacola Little Theatre.

And some downtown street lanterns to round out the set.

If your images don’t look like this, then we have an entire range of classes to help you get going in the right direction! Pensacola Photo School was designed to help amateur photographers tackle & overcome the challenges of getting started in digital photography. We can help you too!

If you haven’t joined us for a Pensacola Photo School class, you have another opportunity this weekend when I teach Creative Composition at 3:00pm. We’ll meet in front of Old Christ Church, across from the Pensacola Bay Brewery for a walking tour of downtown Pensacola!

You can get more details here! See you in class!

We start things off this weekend with a double header:

Saturday / February 2 = Digital Photography 101
Sunday / February 3 = Workflow

Digital Photography 101 is our “core” class. If you are new to photography, or just recently upgraded to a fancy camera that you aren’t exactly sure of how to use, then this is the perfect class to start with! This is a class for beginners to get to know the features & settings of their camera in an “easy” to understand way. Forget the manual, and let PPS walk you through it step-by-step!

The Workflow class is a brand new class being offered for the first time ever! This class will break down the complex world of post-production. I’ll be teaching this class using Adobe Photoshop, and we will be covering RAW processing using Adobe Bridge. We will learn about pixels, cropping, color space, editing, and ultimately, delivery onto the web. You don’t want to miss this one!

And then later this month, we’re back with a third class:

Sunday / February 10 = Creative Composition

I’m hoping to change things up a bit for this class, and add a live subject (model) for our students to work with! This will make it easier to understand some of the framing concepts we cover in the class.

If you haven’t been to a PPS class before, you are in for a treat! Be sure to check our class schedule, and register today!

This is a great accesory for anyone who wears glasses, and especially for anyone who wears makeup. This piece helps keep the playback screen clean, and free of residue. Check it out!

~ Charles

Today, I wanted to review one simple concept, which is the basic difference between a “point and shoot” camera, and a D-SLR. Without using fancy terminology, the fundamental difference between a point & shoot camera, and a D-SLR is the functionality of the lens.

A point & shoot camera has a permanently attached lens that cannot be removed. Popular examples are the Canon PowerShot series, and Nikon’s CoolPix model. Sony, Olympus, and a range of other manufacturers also produce point & shoot cameras.

Photography is a hobby of capturing moments. Many of my students complain about the point & shoot camera’s number one limitation: slow response time. The typical point & shoot can take several seconds to go from a state of rest to a state of ready. In that brief amount of time, the moment may have passed. Consumers who get serious about photography quickly find that the limitations of a point & shoot camera are frustrating. But for an everyday user, these cameras are simple, affordable, and easy to use.

The serious amateur photographer will typically own a D-SLR. The term D-SLR stand for “digital single lens reflex”. In the film days, these cameras were simply known as SLR cameras. A single lens reflex camera is one in which the photographer gets a true preview of the image they will be capturing using a mirror’s reflection. The camera’s viewfinder reflects the actual scene visible through the camera’s lens, whereas a point & shoot camera uses an approximation to give a projected idea of what will be captured. In simpler terms, we know the D-SLR to be a digital camera with interchangeable lenses.

The most popular D-SLR model on the market is the Canon Rebel. Nikon also produces a premium series of consumer grade D-SLR cameras. Typically, a photographer looking to purchase a D-SLR camera should expect to spend a minimum of $400 for an entry level D-SLR kit.

In addition to response time, the D-SLR camera offers a number of other major advantages. These cameras allow for the attachment of an external flash through the use of a hotshoe, offer more advanced controls to allow the photographer to accurately manage their image exposure, and they produce a higher quality photograph. The image quality a camera will generate is most commonly understand using the megapixel rating.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to experience a D-SLR camera personally, plan to join me at an upcoming Pensacola Photo School class. We always have loaner cameras available so you can experiment with professional grade camera before making the decision to purchase. See you in class!

~ Charles

We have had a busy summer of classes. We have a Digital Photography 101 class scheduled for Wednesday / August 29, 2012. If you would like details about the class, please visit our class schedule. PPS also hosted four other classes this summer! Thank you to everyone that made it out to support our classes.

As a recap, here are the classes we hosted this summer:

Wednesday / May 23, 2012 = Digital Photography 101
Thursday / May 24, 2012 = Basic On-Camera Flash
Friday / May 25, 2012 = Low Light Photography
Thursday / July 5, 2012 = Digital Photography 101

Our Basic On-Camera Lighting class introduced students to using their Nikon or Canon flash. In this picture, the students were experimenting with directional flash.

Our Low Light Photography class took students on a walking tour of downtown Pensacola in the early twilight hour. Here are a couple of shots of Palafox from the class.

We also explored a concept called “painting with light”. The first example shows the correct result.

I “painted” myself with the flashlight!

We also used moving water to create motion effects.

And lastly, we ended with some smiley face work! Clearly, drawing is not my strong suit!