CL asked Jen Ring to sit in on one of the photography classes at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts (FMoPA) so our readers could get a sense of what the classes entail. This is her fourth and final week of Photography 101 (read about week 1, week 2, and week 3).
Our final Photography 101 class began with a PhotoShop tutorial. It's fitting, considering this is the final step in making an image. I remember the first time I opened PhotoShop, also known as the most intimidating software program ever…probably. A long row of mysterious icons runs down the left side of the screen, and then there's this thing called layers over on the right. It's not something you can easily teach yourself.
My first real introduction to PhotoShop came from Gregg Hickman of Lake Shore Camera (now closed), a kind man who once spent almost an hour teaching me PhotoShop for free just because I bought a camera at his store. Prior to Gregg's tutorial, I had spent hours fruitlessly watching useless online tutorials.
This week the Dutertre's expanded my Photoshop knowledge by teaching me how to process RAW images in PhotoShop, something that's actually way easier than I thought it would be. RAW images are larger data files that contain way more information than your average JPEG; mostly only the pros bother with them because they require some extra work. But it's amazing how drastically you can alter a photograph in PhotoShop, especially when you start with a RAW file.
As an added bonus, we were given some tips on using flash and reflectors to cast extra light upon a subject, something two of us students expressed an interest in at the beginning of the course.
At the beginning of August, I started taking a photography class at FMoPA. Four weeks later, I'm a little sad that it's over. I will miss chatting about photography with my fellow students and our expert professors. I will miss the slideshows of beautiful images we analyzed on the road to making better images ourselves. Most of all, I will miss having the Dutertres as photography mentors.
Regardless of talent level, the Dutertre's mentored us all for that brief four-week period that was Photography 101. They helped us make sense of our camera settings, taught us how to compose better images, and showed us how to process our images in Photoshop. Most importantly, they answered our questions.
With the Dutertres and their many years of photography experience by my side, I felt like I could do anything. I am truly not ready to let them go. Thankfully, I will always have the option to take another one of their classes at FMoPA or see one of their United Photographic Artists (UPA) gallery photography shows around town.
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 6, 2017.