I wanted to share a little about the photography classes I’m taking right now since they are bringing me so much excitement! I seriously love them. The classes are at Burrough’s High School here in Burbank (where my hubby went to school). They have one of the top 10 dark rooms in the country with like 15 enlargers and a whole fancy set up, including a real life studio. I have never heard of a high school with equipment like this, but I’m glad its one that’s close by!

Advanced Black & White Photography:
The first class I started was Advanced Black & White Photography. It is so super fun. In the last three weeks I have 1) developed a roll of film that I shot 2) made proof sheets and 3) printed an 8×10 in the dark room! In the next 3 weeks, I’ll be printing more 8×10’s as well as adding Sepia tone to a print of my choice. It’s amazing to see how this stuff was done before the digital revolution and Photoshop. It really gives a whole new perspective on how much work the real, legitimate photographers had to put in. I’ve learned how to burn/dodge and heck – even just loading the film tanks in the complete darkness is a work of art in itself!! I am so proud of myself when I do THAT right. This class is short – only 6 weeks – but I think I’ll probably take it again since its just so much fun.

One of the first B&W pics I ever shot (about 6 years ago?) I made this into an 8×10.

Intermediate Color Photography
I have only been in this class for one week, but already I love it. The teacher used to be an NBC staff photographer. She has shot Johnny Carson, for heaven’s sake. So its cool to learn from someone who has the experience as a working photographer. I know all the ins-and-outs of my camera (like white balance and shooting with the manual modes), so the functional stuff is just review for me. But the exciting part is that we get assignments every week and we’lll be printing and mounting our photos to make a nice little portfolio. We also get to shoot in the studio (yay!) and work with our images in Photoshop, so I’m getting the exact kind of experience I want. It’s a 14 week class, and I have a lot to look forward to. I’ll take the Advanced Digital class after this.

Just playing with color…

Photoshop for Photographers
I have been using Photoshop for a LONG time – probably around 10 years. So I wasn’t sure how much I’d learn from this class. But it was 50 bucks and designed specifically for photographers, so I thought I’d give it a go. We are working with CS4 and I am kind of in love with it. It’s not all that different from CS3 (which is what I use now), but just has a few little advantages. And the nice part is, there are so many ways to do one thing that I’m actually learning some new tricks. There are some cool girls in my class too, so its been fun in more ways than one.

Before and After – notice her slightly improved waistline & boobs in “After”. My new favorite tool in Photoshop!

Thank goodness for adult school, huh? I don’t ever remember them telling us that once we were out of high school we could do stuff like this. I didn’t even know trade schools and things like that were an option. It was like – either college or nothing. So I got a job right out of high school and figured I’d just wing it the rest of my life. But these schools offer so many different types of classes, that now I may just expand my knowledge for the heck of it. Why not?