Carla was dedicated to getting each of us to zero in on our individual strengths and weaknesses and our individual passions. With these items identified, she guided us, redirected us and fine-tuned us all while we whirled through Hartford with Ballroom Dancers!

Here are a few of the images from the day:

My frustration lately has been exposure and how to help my camera do what it is capable of doing. Carla had us shoot in Manual mode all day (I usually hover in aperture priority where I ride the +/- a lot). I found that I had so much more control when I use the manual mode (duh!) and I was able to really get what I wanted without a lot of messing around.

I also learned that I like to jump into situations, set up scenarios and start shooting before I get my exposure set which then leads to me missing moments (ever done this…”twirl around…that was awesome”….chimp images…notice you were not really at the exposure you wanted…”great, can you do that again?”). By having Carla watch everything about our shooting and pointing it out, I learned to slow down, get things exactly how I want them and then fire away. Happy J.C.!

So go sign up and check out the blogs of my fellow classmates:

Jake Bergmeier
Tania Sones
Jen Hingham
and Greg Lewis.

Thanks so much to Carla and her staff. Jeanine, thanks for setting up the dancers and the location. Graham, thanks for walking me through my technical questions. Carla, thanks for taking me to the next level.