Creative Photography
As mentioned in the “A short introduction…” blog post – I recently completed a Creative Photography course through the Evolution Arts Centre (http://www.evolutionarts.co.uk) in Brighton.
The course was amazing! Of all the photography courses I have looked into in Brighton and the rest of East Sussex – it has to be the most diverse & cost effective course out there! It is ideal for anyone thinking about getting back into photography again, beginners and people who need a bit of a refresher course.
The course tutor, Natasha, was friendly and knowledgeable, but most importantly – encouraging! There’s nothing worse when you are getting back into something that you are so passionate about than someone who will not give you constructive feedback! How would you learn without it!
Each week – the lessons were structured to deliver technical photography knowledge as well as discussing the content, composition, colour etc. of other photographers work.
At the end of every lesson the group were given a home work assignment -
Week 1 – Self portraiture – I found this quite complicated to do! I didn’t want to take photographs of the usual, “here’s me in a mirror”, “here’s me with my cat” pictures…although I did a couple of those I have to admit. So I got to thinking about how I could experiment with self portraiture. After doing a bit of research on Flickr and good ol’Google – I was inspired to cover the topic in a different way – taking photos of people who are close to me, holding a piece of paper with a sentence that reflected me and what they thought about me.
Week 2 – Take 50 steps…take a photograph…take 50 more steps…etc. until we reached 36 images. This was an amazing task to do – suddenly areas of Brighton that I thought were mundane, suddenly became interesting places to photograph. It made me realise my surroundings and the interesting people in them. It was this project that spurred on my fascination for photographing junk shops!
Week 3 – Depth of Field – Quite a common homework topic for any photography course. I love using interesting depth of field. It can really alter the focus point on the photograph. This project furthered my love of antique/flea markets. After a trip to Lewes (which is riddled with antique shops!) – I was totally hooked on taking pictures of old memorabilia, furniture and nik-naks!
Week 4 – Portraiture – this had to be the scariest part of the course…going up to complete strangers and asking if I could take their photograph. After a practical portraiture session with the rest of the group & Natasha – I quickly gained a little more confidence about approaching complete strangers and directing them for a photograph! I was incredibly inspired by the photography work of Diane Arbus – so I set about taking photographs of the weird and whacky! And Brighton is full of that! What with the Brighton Fringe Festival going on at the time – there were some very willing and interesting subjects out there to take photographs of!
Week 5 – Long exposures – I went a little bit crazy with this project! Over the course of a weekend – I took hundreds of photographs with long exposures! At the time of taking these photos – the Brighton Festival was still on and The Old Steine was covered in an up-turned cow shaped tent called the Udderbelly! All around the tent, the trees and fountain had been uplit with green, blue and purple lighting – making for beautiful subjects to photograph. And I was amazed how many people were willing to stand completely still whilst I took a long exposure picture of them!
Week 6 – Taking images in difficult light situations.
Week 7 – Presenting your work.
I am definitely going to get booked onto Natasha’s continuation course!
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