Digital Photography developments

Improving my digital photography

March 2010

Having bought my SLR camera and played areonund with it and the software it came with for about six months, I have decided to raise my game a bit.

For better or worse I have enrolled on the Open University's T189 Digital Photography course which runs from May over the summer months. My problem is that I adopt a lazy approach to technology, finding out just what I need to know to get by, but never really experimenting to discover the full scope the the tools at my disposal.

Whislt part of the course will be about photographic composition, the bulk of it will be about digital image managment and to this end I have just installed Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, which opens up a whole new world of functionality.

Up till now I have used a mix of Digital Photo Professional and Paint.net, which have given me a general familiarity whith the medium but a quick play with the new software revealed how much more there is to learn. I am sure that half of the work will prove irrelevant, but by being forced out of my comfort zone I am confident that I will grow and sharpen my skills.

The interesting thing about thisacourse is that it is web based and one learns by critically evaluating fellow students work. I suspect that much of my experimental work will be based on watery subject matter so you will be able to view my progress real time.

The sweetest think about this course is that it hasn't cost me a penny. I simply used £45 of my Tesco vouchers which are quadrupled up to cover the charge. What a great way of using our reward points.