Posted by Instructor Ellie Stone

Our Natural Light Portrait Workshop has become quite popular, and for good reason. Who doesn't want to learn some new skills on photographing people in nature's studio?

We had two 3 hours classes on this gorgeous Sunday in December. Both classes started with introductions, as this is our way of getting to know each student and their expectations for the day. After we all have become acquainted, I went over some foundation skills on aperture and its importance in portrait photography, due to its relation to depth of field. After the refresher presentation, we all head outside with our lovely models to get to the fun tactile portion of the workshop.

The Pruneyard center is rich with portrait backgrounds, some are obvious to all, but a lot are only obvious to the trained eye. We took the entire class around and spotlighted all these areas.

We pose our models, while explaining why we had chosen the particular location and what types of poses worked best. All the while we are reviewing the students' images and supplying feedback and tips on how to improve or try a different approach.

We worked on isolating our model with a shallow depth of field, all the while ensuring that shutter speeds would be fast enough in the changing light. Everyone was amazed at how many background options there were in such small area, and before we knew it the time was up and class was over.

Every student captured some fantastic portraits of our beautiful models, and learned some new tips in the process. For some it was about never going back to the little "green box" that is program mode. For others it was how to compose a portrait properly, or pose a model.

Another fun and productive day was in the books!

Until next time, many thanks from Alicia, Kristen and me, along with the entire Aperture Academy team! Thanks for another great workshop!

If you'd like to join us at one of our workshops, you can find the schedule/sign up here.

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