Digital Photography Boot Camp (DPBC)
Digital photography is a technical process that of necessity uses tools. Artists who have a thorough understanding of how to use the tools of their art will have a significant advantage in realizing their artistic vision.
DPBC is an organized series of instruction and exercises that will help photographers understand the operation of their digital camera and computer post production software with the goal of improving the rendering of their own artistic vision.
Digital camera manufacturers have taken two different tacks in designing their products. The first is the principle of “convenience over quality”. Consumers have consistently shown a preference for products that are simple to use and easy to carry over products that deliver superior results. The point and shoot snap-shot camera is the resulting product of this line of thinking in digital photography. Small, light weight, fully automatic and often built into other personal electronic appliances such as cell phones, point and shoot snap-shot cameras are now the ‘lingua franca’ of family parties, tourist visits and social media. All photographic control has been surrendered to the computer in the camera.
The second tack in digital camera design is one of adding increasing complexity to the camera system using the principle of “if we can make it – we will put it in the camera whether you want it or not”.
This school of camera design, influenced more by software engineers than by photographers, assumes that the photographer wants to be able to control everything. This design direction has lead to cameras with a plethora of buttons, applications and layers of menus deeper than King Solomon’s Mines. Facing such a daunting mountain of poorly organized information and controls, the frustrated photographer sets the camera on “Auto” and shoots away hoping for the best.
In DPBC, we take the mystery out of the operation of both simple and complex digital cameras so that the photographer can be comfortable knowing that they can create the images they want with creative control assured . Taking the camera off of Auto and using your own creative input can have big results in the quality of your images.
Digital photography does not stop with the capturing of an image in the field. Computer based post production of images in programs such as PhotoShop add new layers of creative options and new challenges to user control. Fortunately for landscape photographers, the number of features in PhotoShop that are needed to process images for viewing and printing are relatively small portion of the program’s capabilities. Using examples from workshop generated images, participants will learn the steps needed to finish a landscape image to its best.
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Tom Gamache and Van Webster
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