Wow what an epic 2 day Beginner Photo course at the Mornington Peninsula Studio. So many people come to me utterly confused with how their camera actually works.

This particular Mornington Peninsula client had a daughter who was buzzing with creativity and a real drive for knowledge. I spent some time communicating with Dad to find out exactly what she wanted to learn.

Like many of my clients (for the purpose of this blog lets call my client Penny ) Penny really wanted to get away from Photographing in “Auto mode.” She had all these creative ideas but just simply felt frustrated not having the tools or knowledge to execute them.

So it was my job to take Penny back to the basics of photography and make things simple. There are many of us who get sold on all the special features of a new camera but fail to understand or even use these features. Penny wanted the ability to use her images for instagram and get away from the non creativity of using a mobile phone.

Being a one on one Mornington Peninsula Beginner Photo course meant I had time to slowly go over the features of her camera. In my position I have to say I do see many camera’s and I too often get confused. After a bit of research and information digging we soon found the basic features.

Taking in the relationship of Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO can be quite confusing. So to help make things easier I slow things down. We even practice different scenarios. Usually I split the Mornington Peninsula Beginner course over 2 days so this gives time for the dreaded word: Homework to be put into practice. It is of no use cramming information into your head with out practice. People learn by doing and can only absorb a certain amount of information.

Once these raw fundamental elements are established we are then in a position to move on to some out in the field work where we can put into practice what we have learnt.

Many of us love photography but many of us find it pretty confusing. It is my role to slow things down and get you back to the raw fundamental principles of how all those elements come together.

So if your someone who loves photography and feeling a little perplexed by it all let me give you a helping hand and put things into perspective so you can spend more time out photographing with the confidence of taking control of your camera.

Here are some useful resources:

500 px is a great platform for sharing your images and gaining inspiration

1x.com is another great community of amazing images. In my view these images are of the highest calibre in the world.

Dpreview is a wonderful platform where your can find out all about the latest products and gear.

Luminous Landscape is a wonderful source of information for global photographic education

Fstoppers is another useful resource of photography information. There are some brilliant examples of work here.