Photo School Results

I've spent the last month taking an online photography class at The Perfect Picture School of Photography. It was a pretty solid course, and helped me spot some of the weak points in my photography. We shall see if it leads to an improvement or not! Here is the coursework I submitted over the last month, some of which I have posted here before and some of which is new.


Eyrie Pagoda


Eikando Bridge


Marie

The first lesson was to fill the frame with your subject. While I had some good closeups of leaves and the like, I decided to go with a portrait, as it's traditionally a weak point of mine, and some landscapes as those are some of my favorite subjects. Of the three, Marie got a Perfect Picture statement from one of the teachers, which made me pretty pleased.


The Lone Pilgram


Fall at Kanazawa Castle

The next lesson was the Rule of Thirds. Looking back through my work I noticed a great many photographs that completely ignore the Rule of Thirds. Oops. As for the two submissions, the top one got good marks, but the bottom one should be thirds the other way, here the sky here is boring and the castle much more interesting.


Fushimi Inari


Info Desk


Christmas at Labbro

This lesson was framing, using something in the photographt to 'trap' the viewers eye. This was a tricky lesson, I had some ideas of good frames, but this was the week we had two hours of sunshine in about 8 days. I had to get pretty creative and seek frames inside, with one legacy shot from May in Kyoto. Gotta love that Fushimi Inari. All three were well liked, though of course none are perfect.


Past and Future


Nishi Chaya


Geisha Crane

The final assignment was to work a subject. We had to take one area/ subject and rather than settle for one nice picture of it, keep going. We had to try using new lenses and new perspectives to 'see' our subject in as many different ways as possible. A rare moment of sunshine had me out the door and down the block to the local Geisha district, and I rather like how they came out. The Crane detail was praised, as well as the long shot, but the picture with the looming apartment building was too busy, subtracting from the impact of the beautiful geisha houses.