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Download details and a booking form here: These will open as pdf files. Please print them out or save to your computer
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Dates: 11th-15th October 2010
Location: Bossiney House Hotel (www.bossineyhouse.com), on the edge of Tintagel, north Cornwall.
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Download details and a booking form here: These will open as pdf files. Please print them out or save to your computer
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Likely photo locations: Cliffs, beaches, harbours and moors of north Cornwall's rugged Atlantic coastline.
Maximum no of people: 12
Who this course is meant for: Anyone who at least knows how to press the shutter on their camera to get a shot, but who wants to move beyond the hit-and-miss approach to being able to produce great shots repeatedly and reliably.
About the course
This will be a landscape photography course centred on the dramatic cliffs, coves, beaches and harbours of north Cornwall. Most of the photo locations will be in the area around Tintagel and Boscastle, but may range between the Bude area to the north and Port Isaac further south.
The course will aim to teach four main aspects of photography:
1. How to make the best use of a digital camera.
Many people are only scratching the surface of what the new breed of digital cameras can do, as a result greatly limiting what they can achieve. I will aim to teach the use of some of the most important functions of both the digital camera and the inevitable associated computer work, functions that will explode the horizons of what you can do!2. Compose, light, focus: the holy trinity of great photography.
Teaching this threesome will aim to help participants understand the psychological aspects of what to look for in a landscape and how to look for it. This is the art of image previsualisation. It will be coupled with learning how to compose the subject, how to use the light provided by nature, and how to use focussing, perspective and lens angle to enhance the overall image and in particular the main subject within it.3. Development of some specific techniques.
The use of a number of standard techniques will be introduced, including (but not limited to!): a) How to blur moving water to both frame a main subject and add a sense of drama and movement to an image; b) Creation of silhouettes and development of a sun-induced starburst effect; c) Production of panoramics through sequential shooting followed by in-computer stitching.4. Planning a landscape photo shoot.
A large part of successful landscape photography consists of being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes this happens by accident, but more often it is the result of planning. This course will aim to show how to go about preparing to get yourself in the right place at the right time through preparation, using maps to search for potential locations, checking for the time of day, and using weather forecasts to assess the chances of suitable conditions.
Having four days instead of the usual rather brief weekend, we’ll be able to go over these issues in more detail than is normally possible. The course will be more structured than the weekend breaks - though always informal - providing a mix of class work and on-location photography (though the balance will be very much towards being outdoors and actually taking photos). Timetabling won’t be fixed, however, as we will need to work the programme around what the weather delivers up. There will be dawn and dusk photo sessions (weather permitting), as well as daytime shoots, with ‘classroom’ sessions taking place probably mid-morning and in some evenings. The pace of the course will be relaxed, with free time to take it easy and/or explore on your own. Nothing on the course is compulsory!
As part of the course, each participant will receive a full set of course notes covering these three topics.
If you feel you would like to learn these skills then this course is for you!
The Programme
The provisional outline timetable for the week is as follows:
Monday evening
Gather at 7.30pm for dinner, introductions and a talk and image presentation by Nigel Hicks. An introduction to digital camera functions. Discussion of plans for the week.
Tuesday morning
Dawn photo session, if the weather is appropriate, followed by breakfast at the hotel. A class session will introduce some of the most important digital camera functions, plus elements of planning a landscape photo shoot. There’ll then be a break, after which we’ll head out to a photo location.
Tuesday afternoon and evening
We will visit one or two photo locations on or near the coast, including a good site for sunset/dusk, should the weather be appropriate. Dinner will be at the hotel at about 8-8.30pm. This may be followed by a short discussion of the day’s photography.
Wednesday and Thursday
These will follow the same pattern as Tuesday. The morning class session will look at images shot the previous day, using these to introduce some of the most important computer tools for handling digital images.
Friday
The morning will follow the same pattern as previous mornings, although the class session is likely to be shorter. We will head out to a photo location mid-morning, and then return to the hotel shortly after lunch. There will be a final class session to review the week’s photography and for a general discussion. The course will finish by about 3pm to allow everyone to head homewards.
Special note 1:
I’m not intending that we should do dawn and dusk shoots every day - that would be far too exhausting! They are included in the outline programme as options that can be taken up or passed on according to the weather and personal preferences.
Special note 2:
As a mainly landscape photography course, there will be some walking, though I will endeavour to keep walking distances to the minimum (after all, this is not meant to be a hiking holiday!). However, it should be remembered that on Cornwall’s coast paths even short walks are often steep and can be slippery.
The Price
Price for the week is £665 per person for single occupancy of a room, or £625 per person for two sharing, for bed and breakfast for four nights, plus dinner on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, packed lunches on the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and local minibus transportation. Non-photography partners can come along for the weekend at a discounted rate, and discounts also apply for participants not requiring accommodation.
To make further enquires about this course:
Send an e-mail to: info@nigelhicks.com.
Or phone 01626 770181.
To book a place on this course:
Download the booking form (it will download as a pdf document), print it out, fill it in and return to the address on the form. Payment is by cheque, PayPal or BACS (an online booking system is presently under development). Click below to download the booking form:
To reserve a place on the course, print out and fill in the booking form and return by post, with a cheque made payable to Nigel Hicks Images, to the address shown on the form.
I'll look forward to hearing from you, and to meeting you in October!
See images from past courses. Click here....>