Photography Class

I was looking through last year’s family vacation album, and to be quite honest I was a bit disappointed with my photos. They didn’t look anything like those fancy photos in the vacation brochures. I decided to be pro-active and signed up for a free photograph class at the local community college. I showed up to the class and discovered I was the only four legged student. The professor was excited to see someone from the Woodpile attending. He even asked me to model for his new wildlife photography book.

Lesson #1

To get sharp well composed images it is best to use a tripod. Well that is easy to say and do when your 5 foot 6 inches instead of 0 foot 3 inches. They don’t make chipmunk size tripods (at that size it sort of defeats the purpose). I put my years of tree climbing skills to good use. I put together some specialized instructions for my fellow chipmunks.

Step one to use a tripod, shimmy up one of the legs.

Once you are at the top of the legs, you can then rotate the camera to the desired position.

This control allows you adjust the tilt of the camera. Be careful not to fall off.

 This control also doubles as a perch to adjust the various controls on the camera.

After making all of your F-stop, shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation, manual focus adjustments (no auto settings allowed in this class) don’t forget to actually take some time to compose the shot! Composure: “rule of thirds”, leading lines, look for distracting elements, depth of field, tell a story … who knew there was so much to learn about photography. – It literally took an hour to get one shot.

Lesson #2

The next class was on portrait photography. We were all required to ask someone to model for us. I asked Merry to join me. All the ladies in class couldn’t keep their ideas off of him. The professor decided he was the perfect model for his wildlife photograph book and I got the heave ho. Well, back to the lesson. This lesson built on the previous lesson about tripods but I ran into one small tiny problem, the tripod was way too tall for Merry. I got special permission to dispense with the tripod and use the bench.

Merry, you are not in the right spot, I can’t see you in the viewfinder.

I suppose it would help, if I had the camera pointed in the right direction. Let me rotate it a bit.

Merry I need you to look alive rather than like a piece carved pine.

I need some action and expression from you.

 That’s perfect!!!