David Davies
Photographic Foundations
About Dave
Short and sweet…
1979, Photographed my first wedding!
1989, Opened a full-time studio in Shippensburg, PA, providing high school senior and family portraits, commercial photography, weddings, and digital imaging to a small community in central Pennsylvania.
1993, I attained my Certified Professional Photographer status.
1994, Co-taught my first Photoshop class.
1996, I earned a Master of Photography degree.
1997, I earnd my Photographic Craftsman degree.
1999, the Photographic Exhibitions Committee approved me as an affiliate juror in the portrait category.
2000, I served as a print juror at the Professional Photographers of America International Photographic Exhibit.
2012, moved to Raleigh I am currently a member of Professional Photographers of America and Professional Photographers of North Carolina where I now serve on the board as Vice President.
I enjoy teaching and sharing my experience with others as my numerous mentors did with me.
What you'll learn
F-STOP!!!
What is an f-stop… No, I mean what IS an f-stop?
Who would ever want to drag their shutter? Isn’t that hard on the camera?
Why do I need High Speed Sync and what is it anyway?
Rule of thirds and inverse square law? Can I break the rules?
DAM! No, nothing to do with water, I mean Digital Asset Management. Do you have a system?
Market, Schedule, Expose, Download, Process, Proof, Present, Sell, Process, Deliver, Repeat.
We are going to take a deep dive into the fundamentals of photography! This course will take you from zero to pre-CPP in four days. There are no shortcuts to mastery, but understanding the basics, including some of the technical (I know, a scary word for many creatives) aspects of this field will transform your images almost overnight. We are going to answer all the questions you don’t even know you should ask.
The basics first. Basic Camera operation… exposure is the foundation we will build on through the week. How shutter speed, ISO and aperture are related, interact and which to adjust when are covered. You will learn about the inverse square law, sunny sixteen, white balance, RAW files, High speed sync, light meters and histograms… Right is Right!
We will continue with workflow and how to manage the unmanageable. I will show you how to develop a system to efficiently move megabytes from your camera to wall art. This should be a repeatable process that enables you to know exactly where every client asset is at any time.
Models!!! Yes, we will have models! We will photograph and go over lighting, posing, psychology, and how to think about selling before and as you are creating images. You may enjoy photography, but you need to pay the bills!
Digital. This is where many new photographers get tripped up. Tif or jpg, sRGB or Adobe RGB? We will jump into Lightroom and set up a library, go over presets, import files, explore processing, then export to Photoshop.
This may be listed as a “basic class” but if you study professional athletes, dancers, or musicians you will notice that those at the top of their game are relentless about the fundamentals. Even after doing this for over forty years, I notice I am not on my game if I don’t photograph regularly. Your camera needs to almost be an extension of your eyes.
