Photography Classes

Id Eco Super-Eco

6 years ago

Being a monkey with a camera, I decided to take a couple of photography courses to attempt to evolve into an ape with a camera.

Today was my first class at Missy Timko’s Powder Blue Photography.

Missy specializes in portrait photography, but has a detailed knowledge of technical photography, which is something that I have zero knowledge of.

adinserter name=”Block 1″]

Upon arriving at Missy’s front door I really had no idea what to expect. I mean, I hadn’t been to a photo studio since my mom took my brother and I to Sears for a terrifying family portrait.

The 80s were a troubled times, my friends.

The Sears studio was a grim place that hope and happiness went to die, but Missy’s studio had a positive and creative vibe.

adinserter name=”Block 2″]

After introductory chit-chat (she actually thought that I was a woman based on my gender neutral name and large feminine breasts) Missy asked to see the gear that I use to shoot sexy wild beasts.

Out came my Canon Rebel.

I’ve taken this little sweetie through the Amazon, Pantanal, Everglades, and more. It is durable, takes good pics, and has all of the DSLR bells and whistles.

Followed by the new Canon 55mm lens that I procured for this class.

The 50mm lens is perfect for taking photos of wildlife that is close-up like bugs, amphibians, and maybe predatory animals that are attacking you.

Lastly, the juggernaut 100-400mm Canon lens!

This lens is fantastic for wildlife photography: it has great range, retains details for tightly cropped photos, and is manageable when hiking through mountains for dense jungle.

We dove into a discussion on technical photography: shooting on manual, aperture, ISO, and shutter speed.

Prior to this class I had no idea what any of this jibber jabber was.

For the first time in my blasted miserable long-legged life I was woke to what the f*** these technical photography elements were. What a time to be alive!

adinserter name=”Block 3″]

Drunk on knowledge and possibly last night’s Jacob’s Best whisky it was time to practice shooting on manual mode. At that moment, a terrifying wild beast appeared that would make for an excellent subject to shoot.

This is the first manually shot light balanced photo that I have ever taken.

Taking pics of a stationary beast is all well and good. However, in the wild the beasts are always doing action-adventure shit. Then, the bear sprung into action.

After that fluffy son of a bitch flew around a bit I noticed that it began to gaze at me with hunger in its black dead eyes.

It advanced upon me, but I continued to shoot in burst mode because I’m swashbuckling AF.

Likely due to my complete lack of effort in running the bear got me!

During my mauling I learned that I could peel off shot after shot without adjusting my settings with every photo staying completely in focus. Is this how real wildlife photographers have been living all along???

I hope to recover from my mauling in time for my next class in a couple of weeks. My homework for the next class is to practice manual photography, get familiar with Adobe Lightroom, and to stop being an asshole.

I’ll take 2/3!