Join our photo lessons at Ponce City Market, which is one of the excellent locales in the rotation of many Atlanta venues that offer terrific photo opportunities.
Ponce City Market is one of Atlanta’s most visually dynamic locations, offering a mix of historic industrial architecture, modern interior spaces, and direct access to the Atlanta BeltLine. Housed in a former Sears, Roebuck & Co. warehouse, the building’s massive scale, original structural details, and active public spaces make it an ideal setting for both indoor and outdoor photography instruction.
The class begins inside Ponce City Market, where students can work comfortably in a controlled environment. Your Digital Photo Academy instructor will guide you through photographing interior architectural details, storefronts, staircases, and open common areas. This portion of the class can focus on exposure control, white balance, and composing in mixed lighting, using window light, overhead lighting, and shadows created by the building’s original columns and beams.
As you move through the interior spaces, you’ll practice framing, symmetry, and leading lines, using corridors, railings, and repeating structural elements to organize complex scenes. The instructor will also demonstrate how to isolate subjects within busy environments, helping you decide when to step back for context and when to move in closer for cleaner compositions.
If the class goes outdoors, the walk continues directly onto the Atlanta BeltLine, located just outside the market. This transition introduces a different visual rhythm, with opportunities to photograph street scenes, public art, landscaped paths, and people in motion. Here, students will work on timing, layering, and storytelling, combining foreground activity with background architecture and greenery.
Along the BeltLine, your instructor will help you practice photographing movement and flow, using pathways, bridges, and railings as natural compositional guides. You’ll also explore how changing light outdoors affects exposure choices and how to quickly adjust camera settings when moving between indoor and outdoor environments.
The route and time spent indoors or outdoors are flexible, allowing your instructor to shape the class based on weather, group pace, and student interests, while still covering a variety of subjects and techniques.
Know Before You Go:
Bring your camera or cellphone and any gear you can comfortably carry. Make sure batteries are fully charged and memory cards have space. Dress for the weather, and wear comfortable shoes for walking.
Meeting Spot:
- Meet your instructor at the entrance to the Ponce City Market’s Central Food Hall (underneath the big Ponce City Market sign)
Each Composition in the Field class begins with a talk with one of our experienced instructors, and then you and your fellow students take a stroll through one of a variety of photogenic locales (in any of the 20+ cities the DPA encapsulates). There is street photography, magnificent interiors, farmers markets, zoos, landscapes, and more, photos of which are included within. These photos are a mix of student and instructor images in many different venues and cities across the United States and Canada.You will have fun, learn to shoot strategically, get more interesting photos of the event, and walk away with a foundation to improve your photographs in the future, whether you’re traveling, or at a birthday party and everywhere in between.
Please note: If a class must be cancelled due to weather or other circumstances beyond our control we will be happy to work with you to reschedule. If you should need to cancel and require a new class date, contact us. A $25 transfer fee will be imposed without a 3 day notice before the scheduled class.
