Photography Class for Beginners @ Kew

Where: Kew Gardens
When: 10:30am-1:30pm
Who: Beginners looking to enjoy garden photography
Price: £5 + £13.50 entrance (payable via Paypal)
Meeting: Victoria Gate, Kew Gardens
End point: Pavilion Restaurant for Garden POTY

This “focus on” event concentrates on garden photography and in particular, composition and framing, in relation to plant portrait photography.

Kew Gardens is absolutely beautiful and a photographer’s dream if you love taking pictures of flowers, trees, wildlife and stunning vistas. It’s very easy to get to (on the District line) and there will also be the chance to view the best images taken from gardens across the world at this year’s Garden Photographer of the Year exhibition.

The event will take place whatever the weather – please come prepared for rain, cold or blazing heat! It’s suitable for SLRs and compact cameras, costing £5 plus an entrance fee of £13.50.

Focus On: Garden Photography

Concentrating on just a small area of Kew - inside the Palm House and around the Rose Garden - I will show you how to photograph plants in various ways. We’ll discuss:

Finding a viewpoint: Kew’s glasshouse walkways will help with this!
Using macro: how to use depth of field and your macro setting/lens
Plant portraiture: using compositional skills to really capture a portrait
Shooting vistas: looking at techniques for shooting landscapes at Kew

We’ll meet up after an hour to discuss how we are getting on and a chance to ask any questions. We will then continue onto the Temperate House before finishing the session at the Pavilion Restaurant.

The meetup will officially finish at 1:30pm but there is the chance to have lunch together and view the Garden POTY exhibition before exploring the rest of Kew as we wish.

“Thanks for a very nice day. Very friendly group. Lots of tips and advice.” Nathalie, Previous Kew Event (2009)

Be Inspired
Photos from our trip to Kew in 2009
Flickr photos of Kew Gardens
My Flower Photos

Further Info
More info? Go to Kew Gardens website
Queries? Give Natalie a call on 07773 819053
Prefer email? Send it to thephotoschool@gmail.com

How To Create A Good Landscape Photo

Earlier this month I was on a photography retreat up in Balquhidder, Scotland. Out of all the photos I took (nearly 1,500 of them!), this photo at Loch Voil on the penultimate day seems to be all my friends’ favourite.

As a beginner photographer I am also very pleased with this photo. It is a culmination of getting up at 5am everyday and practicing everything I had been taught on the week away!

Please leave me a comment on flickr if you like this photo.

What Can You Learn From This Photo?

I’d like share some photography tips with you in how I created this photo:

• To be a good landscape photographer you need to get up early! I was in position by 5:30am for this photo, which involved climbing over barbed fences in the dark!
• You need to be in possession of some gradient filters, I’ve since learnt! These help with achieving slow shutter speeds to achieve ‘glass like’ water which nicely reflects the sky.
• You need to search for a foreground interest and marry this with a stunning background.
• Focus a third of the way into the image. I found focusing difficult whilst using the filters as there was a lot of switching between auto and manual focusing, so that the camera didn’t focus on the filter itself!
• Wait for the right lighting. And I mean WAIT! You’ll need patience and good observational skills. There were only a few seconds when the sun had lit up the trees before it had moved and lit up something else.

The Enjoyment Of Landscape Photography

To get up early and see the sunrise everyday was one of the highlights of my week away. It was also very beautiful to be in silence a lot of the time and immerse oneself fully in the surroundings. I also liked combining the large vista shots with the close-up plant photography I did. I’ll post more on this another time.

If you would like to know more about going on a photography retreat you can contact the Dhanakosa Centre.

Update: Trees For Cities - Photo Competition

Back in March I wrote a post about the Urban Trees For Cities photo competition. It seems the competition is going from strength to strength with more than 119 photos now. A couple more details have now been released; read on to find out more.

Photo Competition Deadline

Their deadline has been extended until 22 April so you still have a few more days to enter the competition. My favourite images so far are:

Photo Prizes

A number of prizes will be available to successful competition winners. The prize for fist place is a Hymini portable charger to generate energy whilst on the go worth £55 accompanied by 8000 Green Points worth £20 to spend on the Green Rewards website: www.greenrewards.co.uk. There are also two runners up prizes of 4000 Green Points worth £10.

Enter your photos on flickr now to be in with a chance of winning!

Trees For Cities - They Need Your Photos

I just came across this photography competition on one of my (as happens) internet browsing trails.

It’s a chance to upload your urban tree photos and have others see them for your efforts, as I don’t think there are any prizes available :(

And there is the ‘warning’ of ‘by submitting your photographs to the Trees for Cities photo competition flickr group you are granting us the right to use the photo on our website and in marketing materials.’ So perhaps it’s all for their publicity…?

Showcase Your Photos

However, for beginner photographers like me, having a photo used in marketing materials for a worthy cause would be a great start and boost to my confidence!

Mini competitions like these, which use flickr as an easy way to organise a photo competition, are worth entering as they give you exposure, the chance to learn from other photos, and they get you prepared for entering future competitions.

What have you got to lose? Kick start the competition with an entry. Good luck!

Mum Says, Have Fun With Your Food

This year I came across Carl Warner’s fotographics: a set of photos where the scenescapes have all been made by vegetables or other food stuff!

The pictures are a real innovative take on the normal photo.

Photography Game: Spot The Vegetable

They are just amazing to look at! The more you study them, the more vegetables you find have been used to make up the picture. I’m not sure how long they take Carl to put together but I’m guessing a few days. I can spend a few days just looking at them!

You can view more of his foodscapes on Carl’s website. Just click ‘website’ and then ‘fotoscapes’.

Alternatively if you are looking for a photo gift for a food lover or something to keep you inspired in your kitchen, then you can buy prints over at Lens Wall.

Garlicshire is my favourite photo. What’s yours?

Please leave a comment.

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