Hi. I'm Barbara Carroll with Big Picture Scrapbooking. I wanted to tell you a little bit about my class, Photography 101. I have been taking pictures for as long as I can remember and I never, ever, get tired of that thrill of opening up that picture and knowing that I got exactly what I wanted. That is just a thrill that I want for all of you as well. The more you learn about photography, the more your chances increase that you're going to get exactly the pictures that you want. Photography can be kind of confusing when you are first getting started. There is a lot to learn, it seems to be almost disjointed, it doesn't seem to go together, and it can be overwhelming. The thing about this class that I think is particularly helpful is the fact that you have "me". I am your coach, and will be presenting information to you about different things about photography. We will go through things step-by-step - we talk about lighting, we talk about shutter speed, we talk about aperture, lots and lots of different components of photography, and then we put them all together. As you're going through this process, I will be available to you to answer questions that you may be having, concerns that you may be having, just any confusion really. There are absolutely no silly questions as far as I'm concerned in this class. We all have to start somewhere in this process and just get through it. I don't want you to start the class and feel confused and quit. The confusion will go away. There is just a lot that gets thrown at you in the beginning, but with a lot of practice and discussion it all starts to make sense, and I really want you to hang in there and get to where you want to go. I do want to tell you this is not a Photoshop class. We do not really talk much about Photoshop at all. I will be happy to give you a couple of suggestions about things that you can do, but they are very simple things and we won't be getting into in-depth Photoshopping.

The layout of the class is that we have work weeks and we have instruction weeks. The work weeks have been put in there to give you time to do the lessons, to play around with your camera, to get some evaluation and maybe go back and try the same pictures again. We all run into bad weather, the lighting is terrible, all of a sudden your child is sick, whatever, but these work weeks will give you a chance to stay caught up.

There is an evaluation process that goes on. You will be able to post pictures and I will give you feedback on them. I don't want you to be discouraged by the feedback at all. I think that bad pictures are how we learn. We can take a picture and look at it and say, oh my goodness, what went wrong? By learning what went wrong, we can make the pictures right. I don't want anybody to be offended by anything I might suggest or tell you about your pictures, it's all a learning process. I have certainly had my share of bad pictures, and I still do once in a while, and it does help you learn, it really does.

You need to have your manual for this class. There are a lot of different cameras out there, and although the basics of photography are all the same, how you use your camera or how you change your settings will depend on your camera, so it really is essential. If you don't have your manual for some reason, you might want to check online and see if you can get a .pdf file of your manual so you will have that available.

Anyway, this is a fun class. I sure have a lot of fun teaching it, and I am more than happy to help you with any issues that you are having. I hope to see you soon in Photography 101 with Big Picture Scrapbooking.com.