The Natural Light Portrait Workshop is slowly growing on me and becoming my one of my favorite classes to teach at Aperture Academy. After all ambient light is all around us, all the time. And Teaching how to use it, and see it is something that comes very natural for me. . I tell the students to start looking for light. Once you can see the light, you can start to really use it to your advantage.

As always, we start off class in the Aperture Academy studio introducing ourselves and going over the basics of photography. Ellie finishes up her introduction and passing off the power point to me. I begin going over the exposure triangle. The exposure triangle is a way of simplifying a very complex system of metering and balancing exposures into three major parts. We start off with the aperture, and go over the ways in which it affects the image. Then talk about the shutter speed and finally the ISO. After the students feel confident in the exposure triangle we briefly talk about rule of thirds, and composition. By this time our models show up and we introduce them to the group and this concludes our in class session of the Natural Light Workshop. We leave the gallery at Aperture Academy and head out to our on location shooting spots.

Ellie and I spilt up into two groups each with one model and our favorite natural light spots located through out the prunyard shopping center in Campbell, Ca. My group went over seeing the light as it falls on the subject, as Ellie’s group talked about the mood of the location and how to pose the model. After several minutes Ellie and I swapped groups, giving everyone a chance to photograph in each location, and with both models and instructors.

The students continued to capture beautiful images and we walked through the various locations throughout the Prunyard. Towards the end of the day, I could see the students start to make more selective shooting choices, as they felt more comfortable with their cameras. Talking to the models and changing lenses was a sure sign that they felt right at home shooting in Natural Light . . . This concluded our shoot for the day. We all gathered for a group shot, and there were lots of hugs and email exchanges as Ellie and I always offer a fallow up critique of the images that the students shot during any of the Aperture Academy Workshops.

Until next time, Happy Snapping from Ellie, Ajay and the entire Aperture Academy Team!

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

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