Taking a Photography Class at Santa Monica College Extension
At a holiday dinner party last weekend, I ran into an old friend who asked me if I'd like to take a photography class with her. I said sure, if she can find a good class for us to take. This week, she called me up and told me that there is a photography class offered at Santa Monica College (SMC) on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., and that it starts this Wednesday. On a whim, I enrolled.
The SMC Bundy Ave. Campus is only a five minutes drive from my house. There were about 45 students in the Beginning photography class taught by an old dude, Mr. Larry Jones. He was quite funny, irreverent, and obviously knew his material inside out. He had apparently taught this class for many years. He gave anecdotes about his past as a pilot shot down over Vietnam, his divorce, and his photography career, making the three hour class interesting and fun.
When it came down to the technical aspects of photography, boy, I was stumped. I haven't used a camera set on "manual" for many decades. Despite having taking a film photography class three decades ago, I have forgotten everything about apertures, shutter speed, ISO and focus. The concept of "equivalencies" went way over my head. The class was given an assignment: the subject matter is a color that has to take up 60% of the frame. We are to set our cameras to manual, ISO 100, aperture F16, exposure to "daylight". The point is to take pictures of our chosen color being the subject matter and not the object with that color specifically. The teacher also suggested some settings: i.e. using F8 or F11 for taking sunsets. F5.6 for overcast shots etc.
Yesterday, I took my new Sony Alpha 5000 mirror-less camera out for a spin. At first I was going to use the color brown as my subject matter, but nothing great came out. I couldn't figure out how to focus the camera on things. Then I decided to take pictures of the sunset, so I then decided on the color orange: or is it pink/purple? Anyway, here is one I'm quite happy with.
The SMC Bundy Ave. Campus is only a five minutes drive from my house. There were about 45 students in the Beginning photography class taught by an old dude, Mr. Larry Jones. He was quite funny, irreverent, and obviously knew his material inside out. He had apparently taught this class for many years. He gave anecdotes about his past as a pilot shot down over Vietnam, his divorce, and his photography career, making the three hour class interesting and fun.
When it came down to the technical aspects of photography, boy, I was stumped. I haven't used a camera set on "manual" for many decades. Despite having taking a film photography class three decades ago, I have forgotten everything about apertures, shutter speed, ISO and focus. The concept of "equivalencies" went way over my head. The class was given an assignment: the subject matter is a color that has to take up 60% of the frame. We are to set our cameras to manual, ISO 100, aperture F16, exposure to "daylight". The point is to take pictures of our chosen color being the subject matter and not the object with that color specifically. The teacher also suggested some settings: i.e. using F8 or F11 for taking sunsets. F5.6 for overcast shots etc.
Yesterday, I took my new Sony Alpha 5000 mirror-less camera out for a spin. At first I was going to use the color brown as my subject matter, but nothing great came out. I couldn't figure out how to focus the camera on things. Then I decided to take pictures of the sunset, so I then decided on the color orange: or is it pink/purple? Anyway, here is one I'm quite happy with.
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| Sunset on Rose Avenue Apartments: Orange: ISO100, daylight exposure, F5.6, s.speed 125 |
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