"To Teach is to Learn Twice" ~ Joseph Joubert

I have always loved to teach. At age 7 I asked my parents to install a real blackboard in my room. It was huge and there was chalk everywhere. I would come home from school and then spend the whole afternoon teaching my mom whatever I had learned that day in school. Have I mentioned I love my mom? In high-school I was a private tutor for Junior High Students. In college I volunteered in the Math tutoring center. And after college, as a dietitian, even though I had a job at the hospital that I loved and it kept me super busy, I still made sure to get a job as a nutrition instructor in the evenings. I love to teach.

For a while now I have had a few friends and clients ask me to put together a class to teach them how to use their "fancy" DSLR cameras to its full potential. I thought it would be fun since I love to teach, but I didn't give it too much more thought beyond that. Until, a past co-worker of mine emailed me and said I needed to put something together fast! Her brother's wedding was only 3 weeks away and she wanted to put her camera to use and not be frustrated with the results.
Well... I guess I could put something together... How about a "Fancy Camera Workshop"?
I wasn't sure if anyone else would show up, but they did and it was super fun!
We spent the whole morning talking about how to properly expose images using the manual setting and discussed some of the many different compositional elements used in photography. We had lunch and then headed out for some hands-on practice with our model, Luisa. I asked everyone to shoot all of their images on manual and to pick at least 3 different compositional elements to work on.
When we got back inside we talked about post processing and then shared our images and had a fun group critique.
I didn't shoot much while we were out but here are some of my images (and my own homework):

Finding Patterns/Repetition:

Changing focal length (and I guess I cheated a little and changed my perspective a tiny bit):



Something unexpected:

Panning:
Foreground/Framing:

Wide-angle lens distortion:
Shadows:
Sun flare:
Changing perspective (from the photo above):
Here are Erin, Monika and Alicja practicing getting different perspectives of the same subject. I was cracking up when I saw this. By the way, Luisa is wearing shorts under her skirt :)
And here's a very happy me with my very pretty daughter:
A huge thank you to everyone who came. You are all amazing! I had so much fun and learned so much myself. I know I just started in my journey of being a professional photographer not too long ago and I have such a long ways to become the photographer I want to be. However, I want to make sure I fully enjoy every step of the way there and I hope that I get to continue to share what I know with anyone who wants to learn.
And while I am on the topic of teachers I would like to send a huge and special thank you to my very first photography teacher and major source of inspiration, Roy Pope and to Jennifer Bowen for being the first photographer who gave me an opportunity to see first hand what it was like to be a wedding photographer and to fall in love with it . I am forever grateful to you two. Thank you.