Craftsy has photography classes now ⋆ Polka Dot Cottage

I was on my way to the movies with the kids yesterday, when I got pulled over. My license plate had been flagged for expired registration. (Oops. Not the first time that has happened, either.)

As if that wasn’t already a tiny bit embarrassing, it turned out that the insurance card in my wallet was over a year out of date, my back left taillight was out, and there was a crazy long crack in my windshield. Plus, I had rolled over the curb when I pulled over, I was wearing my nutty new glasses, and I had trouble activating the speaker phone on my mobile when the policeman asked me to call my insurance company.

He turned to the boys in the back seat: “Kids, can you show your mom how to use her phone?” And then he gave me a ticket.

I felt like the biggest airhead.

Needless to say, after the movies I had a full afternoon of renewing registrations, looking for my most recent insurance card, and scheduling long overdue repairs. Fun stuff.

After all of that, I kind of felt like flopping down on the couch and losing myself in some mindless tv, but I thought better of that and headed to Craftsy. I have, over the past few months, purchased a handful of Craftsy classes when they’ve been on sale, but I haven’t watched them yet. One of these is Shoot It: Product Photography Class by Caro Sheridan, which seemed intriguing, so I jumped in and caught the first several lessons.

I won’t give you a full review, since I haven’t finished it yet, but I’ll tell you that so far I have seen her go over some basic photography concepts (rule of thirds, whitespace, shutter speed, aperture, etc.) and also a few things specific to product photography (what to bring to a photo shoot).

I think I know enough about the basic concepts at this point. In fact, I actually found myself thinking that Caro’s description of ISO, shutter speed, and aperture was unnecessarily convoluted. I think I might have a better way to express the relationship between the three. (That, in itself, is pretty remarkable when you consider that a few short years ago, I had no idea how any of that stuff worked! Now it feels like second nature. I guess all it really did take was practice!)

I suspect Caro is one of those people for whom the concepts of ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and their relationship to each other just come naturally. It’s clear from her samples that she very much knows her stuff, but I found that particular explanation kind of rough. Sometimes I think that when concepts come naturally to you, explaining those concepts to others can be a challenge. You just know them, you know?

It’s likely where this class will have the most value to me is in the sections specific to photographing products. There are lessons on post-processing, too, that maybe will fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge. I’m self-taught when it comes to all of this stuff, so there’s always the chance of picking up an interesting tidbit that never occurred to me.

I’ll finish watching, and report back 🙂

I had recently heard that Craftsy has introduced a whole bunch of photography classes to their lineup, so I checked that out while I was there. Here’s what’s currently available (these are affiliate links, btw):

As of this writing, they’re all $60 classes, although Shoot It! is currently on sale (I don’t know what the price is on that one, since I’ve already purchased it and no price shows up on my screen anymore as a result).

I’m kind of tempted by Shooting Intimate Landscapes. It’s that close-up stuff that really interests me, when it comes to taking pictures. Any time I bring my camera to the Great Swamp, I find I am drawn more to capturing intimate vignettes than I am to more sweeping vistas. But then, if you’ve seen any of my swamp pictures, you might have already guessed that!

I am not really in “improve your photography” mode right now, but I am going to bookmark that class for when I am!

So. There are two morals to this story:

Sprawling out on the couch and watching somebody do something creative that intrigues you is a good antidote for stressy feelings.
Renew the dang vehicle registration as soon as the envelope arrives in the mail!

Have a lovely Thursday 🙂