Flower and Plant Photography Masterclass
Recently I had the opportunity to try out a new online class on flower and plant photography from My-Photo-School.com , an online photo school in the UK. The instructor is the well known garden photographer Clive Nichols. I found the class to be stimulating and challenging.
The class itself is composed of four weekly sections. Each includes a twenty minute lecture by Clive Nichols, down-loadable lecture notes and an assignment based on the material in the lecture. The lectures contain plenty of examples of Clive Nichols' stunning flower photography. The examples are also published in the lecture notes. The weekly assignments are to take and upload two or three photographs using techniques in the lecture. The assignment photographs are reviewed by Clive Nichols. There is also opportunity to view and discuss the other students work.
Topics include lighting, composition, working indoors and out, and developing a personal style. Each section contained more material than I was able to absorb in a single session. I found the notes to be particularly helpful to look at when planning and selecting the assignment photographs. Each week I had far too many new ideas to try out and am still exploring new techniques.
It was clearly a new class with a few content issues that appear to have been cleared up. It was also affected by a website redesign in the middle that was not as well executed as one might hope, causing me to have me to have a closer relationship with the customer support person than I expected. Finally, and perhaps because of the website issues, only two people completed the course. The small group limited the class discussion which I believe could have been of great value.
All in all, it was a good intermediate to advanced class in flower and plant photography, if perhaps too short to be a true master class. The greatest issue for those living in the US is the exchange rate. The class is priced at £145 which works out to something around $232 US. That may be be expensive for four sessions, but they are packed with information that is of real value.