Barbara starts a photography course

The time has come for me to subscribe to a photo course. From a wide range of schools, courses I decided to choose the one that suits me the best. It means that it is affordable, not far, fits my busy schedule and where groups are not too big. The choice was a Digital Photography course. Irony, as I need to improve my technique in order to start a reflex camera experience:) The lecturer or I should say practitioner is quite nice. Funny guy who wears snickers and Donald Duck yellow tshirt and trauserrs called dungarees:) He is a reportage photographer. And the group is very various. Three guys and two girls. During our first workshops I had many of A-HA moments as I have finally learned how the things work in theory. I knew the practice but had no idea when people where saying some names. Lens stop, Focal lenghts, time - have noc secrets anymore. Or better say - very little:P Very important tip from lesson no1 - manual mode is used only in studio sessions. Definitely not ouside. And tip no 2 - when AF always choose the middle focus point (or whatever it is called) as the side ones are less accurate. And then frame. Something I don't truly agree with - always record in RAW format. Well, when you are limited as much as me by the hardware and disc sapce - you may not have a choice. But I'll give it a go, what means I need an extra SD card!!!! During second workshops we were supposed to bring our best shots for critics and opinion. Well I must say that both of us - me and the pro- are alive so it went quite ok:P Of course I was very stubborn to claim that my poppyseed photo is the best one and making the foreground and background blurred when the middleground is focused proves the uniqueness of this photo. Well... he was not so convinced and I took this photo almost 10 years ago. I should have asked someone to double check my choice as we were supposed to choose out best photos - not our most favourite one:P

Anyway Scottish puffin, Czech Dancing House, Slovenian kayaks, Amsterdam Canals (yep I challenged my exhibition photo:), Dutch surfer aka butterfly and a snowflake from Zakopane. He did not like though photos of planes. If I knew he has flying phobia, I would never shown him my spotting photos!!!! :P Apart from those precious tips I've learnt how to use my polarizing filter properly (btw I have just realzied that I didn't use it yesterday during frisbee tournament:((((