Join our photo lessons at Marin County Civic Lagoon Park which is one of the excellent locales in the rotation of many San Francisco Venus that offer terrific photo opportunities.
This lush 10-acre park is part of the Marin Country Civic Center campus designed by famed architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, embroiled in national controversy at the time, but completed nonetheless, just after Wright’s death in 1960.
The lagoon is a photographer’s dream for photo ops. Your instructor will demonstrate and supervise a myriad of composition strategies and will also offer expertise on choice of camera or cell phone controls all playing off of the unending variety of activities and themes inherent to this park wonderful locale.
Start with the ducks, geese and variety of shorebirds who have made the lagoon their home. Compare the choice of capturing a sitting duck with a Rule of Thirds composition approach to placing your main subject in the dead center of the frame. Inevitably you will add both options to your artillery of composition selections as you engage in the never ending process of developing your own signature style of making images.
How about panning? Focus on a flock of geese in flight and work your camera controls to depict the glorious freedom this soaring creature might experience and enable the viewers of your image to imagine what it must be like to take to the air.
Your instructor will help you create artful portraits, whether soulful fishman in solitude, whimsical images of dog walkers, their canine ward in tow, long lens shots capturing the face of determination on a relentless jogger and much more. Shadows, lighting, surrounding objects all contribute to the final image and you can walk away with a portfolio-worthy photograph to enlarge, print and proudly mount on an office or living room wall.
How about the leading lines composition strategy? Rather than a head on shot of a senior couple enjoying quiet time on a far off bench, start with a row of bushes, allow yourself a low angle by lowering your viewpoint to just above a row of 4 or 5 shrubs, that are positioned so the photo you capture, creates a formation of those bushes, starting at the lower right of your final frame, leading the eye of the viewer along the bushes, diagonally across your photo and culminating with a glimpse of the conversing couple. Such an approach will create a visual narrative, triggering your viewer to wonder what the situation might be for this anonymous couple.
Then of course is the lagoon itself. There are ways to deal with harsh sunlight reflecting off of the water and your instructor can show you.
How about Aperture Priority to highlight a lovely flower in crisp focus, surrounding it with a blurred background of the landscape, achieving a photographic version of a Renoir Impressionist painting?
There will be demonstrations of shutter priority control to capture a fountain in the park in different ways. You have seen the velvety smooth flow of a fountain spouting, almost in slow motion, as a visual metaphor of eternally flowing water. The other end of the spectrum would show a crystal clear version of the same fountain, by a different application of the shutter speed as if you made the stream of water freeze dead in its flow.
Please bring your DSLR or another type of camera that you use, a fully-charged battery, and the equipment that you can carry. You should dress for the weather, wear comfortable walking shoes, and carry a bottle of water.
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 in the three hour session, 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.
