7 Months in- A Year With My Camera- This is how it’s going

So, as you may have figured out I started this whole thing out of embracing a love of photography. I also feel strongly about continuously striving to learn more and staying current in your education and activities outside your family life. This is my experience so far in the project I’ve been working on in this recent endeavor. I joined a year long photography course aptly named “A Year With My Camera.”  This is my review of how this it’s going- almost 7 months in!

This photography course is appropriate for complete beginners. Emma Davis is the creator, and runs the course. It’s simple, and free to take the email version, though she does have a group you can join which is pretty inexpensive, even by my cheapskate judgment. There are also workbooks for those of us who prefer to have something more tactile in our hands. I am sorely tempted to purchase the workbook for the second half of the course. I kinda wish it wasn’t only available on Amazon though. That said, it does likely add to the book’s availability here in the States- She is based over in Europe (England I believe?)

New Year, new course- always working on improving skills!

I started the photography course in January. The first few weeks were for working on technical skills. For me that was mostly review and a kind of introduction to my newest camera. I also did most of this portion just before my trip to Myrtle beach, which I found as an interesting coincidence. There have been a few weeks where using a cellphone camera has been “allowed,” but most of this first section focused on getting familiar with your “real” camera. Honestly, just making sure to always have it available was a helpful aspect of this first part of the course. Cell phones have progressed a lot, and are easily available, but a traditional camera really can give even better results. Having my camera fairly close at hand has been a valuable habit to work on!

These are a few photo’s I’ve taken for fun since starting the course- only the carnation one was related to the course, taken in the photo challenge prior to the course- this “assignment” was fill the frame. These are all unedited, untouched. I could not believe how purple those grains were, or how challenging to capture that color!

I did fall behind, but plunging ahead!

I’ll be honest I’ve fallen behind over the last few weeks. I’m working to catch up right now. I made it to week 12 before I fell behind. I fell behind in the unit where we were working on light (and shadow). We had several weeks of dark, cloudy weather. If I’m honest It was a bit of perfectionism that held me back. I really wanted to work on shadows with natural light, which was rather challenging in my backyard with overcast sky. I have since finished that week, but I’ve had other, much bigger projects taking over for a couple months. More on those another time.

Learning a lot about photography, and determined! Ultimately, my course review is positive!

I’ll have to set myself a schedule to get more than one lesson done a week this month if I want to catch up with where I “should” be, which I do. I believe my photography skills on both my “real camera” and my cell phone have improved, and it’s been a pretty fun and useful course. The scheduled “off week” she places in the course periodically will help me catch up too.

So, my review of this photography course is very positive. All in all I am definitely glad I joined. It’s yet another example of choosing skills to grow, and learn. I think it’s quite apparent that I value that and encourage others to as well. The course is laid back enough for a mom at home caring for children to add to her schedule. It gifts an added bonus of saving those memories too!

If you would like to lean more about this photography course check it out here: A Year With My Camera