It's started!

Yay! It's finally started. The first evening of my photography course has passed. The group is small, I'm the only guy, apart from the instructor, and we seem to have a range of experience in photography from a brand newby to someone who had to defer her training due to family stuff and is now back to continue. Some don't have cameras yet which I find really interesting...

I spoke, briefly, to the returning student and she mentioned that when she started she had to unlearn so much that it became frustrating... I think the newbies (no disrespect intended or implied) may have an advantage, I probably have so much to unlearn that I will lose weight! Certainly I have probably got lots of bad, self taught, habits...

We discussed, very broadly, a range of photographic styles, a selection of career options i.e. Journalism, Weddings/Portraits, Travel, Art, Landscape etc...

We are to shoot 35mm transparency film for the first semester in a manual camera (or on manual mode) for a couple of valid reasons;

1. You can't cull your mistakes, you will learn more from the mistakes than from the fluked "good shot"...
2. You will consider your image making more if there is a financial cost to each shot.
3. You can't modify the image once it has been taken... You can't tweak it before you present it!

So, with the expectation that we will probably shoot 4 rolls of transparency film (36 shots each) per week I am considering the possibility of purchasing bulk film and loading canisters myself... Woo Hoo, a real step back into the age of dark rooms, dark bags, knock before entering signs, red lights, the smell of the processing chemicals...

I am in the dark, my eyes are open, I can't see a thing a timer is ticking behind me, I can hear my father fiddling with the development trays... Hmmm, nostalgia kicks in big time!

Mission in the first week, shoot a roll of film using various manual settings to show an understanding of (or to learn about) the relationship between shutterspeed and aperature...

And so it begins!!! :)