Africa Imagery – Photography in Africa

Howick is situated in the KwaZulu Natal Midlands some 20 Km to the north of Pietermaritzburg. The region is well known for its incredible scenery and wonderful climate. Its here that we hold our Beginner/ Intermediate Photographic and Photoshop workshops.

These 3-day workshops are held at a small conference centre just outside Howick and usually take place over a weekend, with registration and an introductory talk (which includes a slide show) on the Thursday evening and then a full day on Friday and Saturday and a half-day on Sunday.

The following aspects will be covered on the workshop:

· Understanding your camera.
· Image composition and adding impact to your picture.
· The secret of using light.
· The art of seeing and creating a photograph.
· Camera controls.
· Principles of Photography.
· Using the Histogram to judge exposure.
· The use of Blinkies to prevent blown out highlights. (Blinkies? Come to the workshop and find out).
· Image Editing in Photoshop.
· Use of Photoshop Layers to enhance images.

Program

· Thursday 16:00. Arrive At Yellowwood Café for course registration and set up. Yellowwood Café is situated on the Farm Fairfell just outside Howick on the way to the stunningly beautiful Karkloof. The photogenic homestead, where we’ll be meeting, is a historic monument and was built in 1872. After registration we’ll have an introductory talk and show and a very quick look at Photoshop in preparation for the action on Friday morning. Pre-dinner drinks will be served in the cosy bar, followed by dinner

· Friday 05:30. Meet at the entrance to Umgeni Valley Nature Reserve just past Yellowwood Café on the Karkloof Road for coffee and rusks. The greater part of this nature reserve lies in the spectacular gorge below the Howick Falls on the Umgeni River. The upper part is the fringe of a rolling plateau which has an average altitude of about 1 000m and the land falls away abruptly at the edge of the plateau for about 60m to form rock faces in places before dropping a further 150m or so into the valley below. The wildlife (zebra, impala, wildebeest, blesbok and others) can be particularly relaxed so we should get some very good images of them as the sun rises at about 06:30. We will continue to work the area, shooting images of the flowers, trees and scenery until the light “goes” about 2 hours after sunrise.

We return to Yellowwood and download our images onto our computers. Participants then select 3 images to include in the evaluation session and at about 09:30 we head into the diningroom for a scrumptious brunch. The day continues with discussions, Photoshop tutorials and image analysis (this aspect is critical – we work with your images, looking at composition, impact and technical details).

Sunset is at about 18:30 and so at about 16:00 we’ll head out into the field to again to do more practicals. Locations depend to a large extent on weather conditions so we’ll make the call on the day but it will probably be to the recently established Karkloof Crane and Conservation Centre. The centre is set amongst some wetlands on a private farm at the foot of the very beautiful Karkloof mountains. There are 2 large bird hides (we had some input with regard to the design of the interiors so they work well for photographers), open water and stunning scenery. Here we will experiment with the use of wide angle and telephoto lenses before having a few chilled glasses of the Cape’s finest and returning to Yellowwood for dinner.

· Saturday 06h00. We’ll meet on the Karkloof Road at the turn-off to Karkloof Falls. After winding through grasslands and pine plantations, the Karkloof River tumbles over the Woodhouse Falls before plunging 88m over a sheer cliff into the forested Karkloof Valley. This is where we learn to photograph water – reflections, action, movement and especially, how to get those soft, fluffy waterfall images. Coffee will be served under the pines and we return to Yellowwood to download images.

We work through the day much as we did the previous one with analysis, discussions and practicals. In the late afternoon at about 16:00 we’ll be joined by some young models who will pose for us. The Yellowwood Café gardens are very beautiful and we’ll spend some time in them, working with the models. We will use different lenses, looking at what effect lens choice has on the image. We will look at how to pose people and use changing vantage points to achieve different effects.

Pre-dinner drinks will be served outside where an informal discussion of the day’s events will be held.

· Sunday 08:00. Meet at Yellowwood to download images. After a light breakfast we begin with the analysis of the modelling images from Saturday afternoon – this time, because of time constraints, only 2 images are submitted by each participant. After the evaluation session we look at how to edit a portrait in Photoshop, using layers to enhance skin texture, eyes and mouth. We wrap the workshop after Sunday lunch served under the trees outside the pub.

Equipment required is as follows:

· A SLR Digital Camera preferably with removable lenses (a fixed lens camera will work but will limit what we can do to a certain degree). An advanced point and shoot camera will be fine for beginners, but it should have a fairly long lens, as we will be doing some wildlife photography (e.g. Canon G9, G10 or S5, Nikon S60, P80 or P6000 or something similar).
· Zoom lenses – the selection is broad but at least 2 zoom lenses are recommended, one wide angle and one medium to long telephoto, which should preferably have some form of image stabilization.
· A flashgun.
· A sturdy tripod.
· A laptop computer with either Photoshop or Photoshop Elements loaded on to it. This is essential. Instruction will be in Photoshop Elements 6. It is recommended that you have some form of backup medium – DVD’s or a portable hard drive. We will have copies of Photoshop for sale at the workshop and also free versions of various other programs available to load onto your computer.
· A memory card reader or computer cables to connect your camera to your laptop.
· The charger for your camera/s.
· Memory Card/s.
· The manual(s) for your camera(s).

Accommodation:

Workshop participants stay at the nearby Midmar Nature Reserve in 2 roomed chalets and each day make their way to the nearby Yellowwood Café where we are holding the workshop

Workshop Dates: 16 to 19 April, 25 to 28 June and 8 to 11 October 2009

The cost of the course is R4 980-00 p.p. (price subject to change) and includes accommodation, food, teas and coffees, comprehensive course notes and a certificate of completion of the workshop. Alcoholic Drinks and extras are for your own account.