Travel & Humanitarian Photos
Gracious, I’ve been away from the blog for too long. I’ve been busy. That’s my excuse. You believe me, right? Anyway, apologies for the hiatus. I was thinking of you. Honest!
Firstly, your free desktop wallpaper for April comes from the island of Koh Samet in Thailand. It was shot at dawn from a small beach on the eastern side of the island. A perfect location to see the sun rise. It’s a High Dynamic Range image constructed from a single RAW file and the EXIF data can be seen if you mouse-over the image below. Scroll down for downloads for various screen resolutions..
April Desktop Wallpaper (1024x768)
April Desktop Wallpaper (1280x1024)
April Desktop Wallpaper (1280x800)
April Desktop Wallpaper (1920x1200)
So, you want to know what’s been keeping me busy? OK, lots of interesting projects have kept me from finding the time to hit the “New Post” button for the last ten days and I can tell you about a few. Some are top secret and I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you and neither of us want that.
The first Bangkok Photo School ten-week photo courses have just reached their conclusion. By some curious good fortune the first twenty-six photographers to sign up for our weekly three-hour lessons were all hugely enthusiastic, very attentive and tremendously keen to learn. The measure of how successful the courses were is that it never really felt like teaching, it felt more like getting together with a group of friends each week to discuss photography. We covered basic camera control techniques including metering and exposure, lighting and composition and had two very enjoyable field-trips. The kind words and encouraging feedback we received at the end of each course have made me blush and it was a real treat to find students going out of their way to pass on their positive feedback. Of course, there were things to learn too and we’ll be tweaking the Bangkok Photo School curriculum slightly before our new courses begin in June.
I’m a photographer first and a teacher second but teaching has brought many advantages that I can transfer to my photographic work. I’ve learned that teaching is very much a two-way process, it’s more about sharing that it is about instructing. Allow me to share some of the benefits I’ve found in teaching. Firstly, if you’re going to be talking about metering modes and exposure control for three hours to a dozen or more students then you’d better be sure that you know your stuff. I know enough about exposure to get a reasonably high success rate of well-exposed shots each time I head out with a camera but there’s a world of difference between knowing enough to get by and knowing enough to talk knowledgeably on the topic, to answer questions and to set up practical exercises with a dozen different camera models. So the first benefit is that teaching took me back to the classrom. I sat myself down in the library and went back to basics, making sure that my understanding was accurate. It was a valuable exercise and I recommend it.
Secondly, teaching really makes you think on your toes. We had material prepared for each lesson of course but there’s no way to predict what questions will arise. “How do I set up 2-stop exposure bracketing on this Nikon?”. Sheesh! If you have no idea then you’d better have a plan to find out pretty damn smartish.
Preparing example images for the course also prompted me to think more carefully about my photography. For example, to create a sequence of images that demonstrate relative depths-of-field at different apertures and focal lengths, it was important to retain some consistency in other aspects of the shot. I quickly had my trusty tripod shipped over from England, not having been able to find a decent one in Thailand for less than the price of a small, family car. More surprising still, I even found that I wanted to use it when it arrived. Me! A tripod! So I’m stepping outside my comfort zones, thinking and considering shots more carefully and finding that having a very specific outcome in mind really sharpens my approach.
The process of teaching has taught me as much as I hope we were able to teach our students and if you have the necessary skills but are reluctant to share your knowledge and experience by teaching or mentoring then let me leave you with one final reason why you might give it a go. Seeing the improvement in students’ images over the course of just a few weeks is wildly rewarding. We set a homework exercise each week and reviewing the photos at the start of every class became a real highlight. Each week there were gems that I knew would probably not have been taken outside of the course. Dynamic photos taken from unusual perspectives, eye-catching photos taken at impressively slow shutter-speeds, engaging portraits taken under sympathetic light with inch-perfect depth-of-field. The list goes on.
It was an enjoyable and rewarding experience but now I have a couple of months off from teaching to get back to what I do best. Taking photographs. I’ve compiled some observations from a few one-to-one workshops that I’ve worked on recently and I’ll post those during the remainder of this week. I have a further week in Bangkok to catch up on a growing backlog of admin and to begin project planning for future activities and then it’s off to Nepal for some well-earned chill time. Just me, my camera, the mountains and a stack of blank memory cards. I’m also heading back to England for a couple of weeks in May so if you’re interested in getting together for a Photo Workshop or a Lightroom Tutorial then e-mail me and we’ll see about hooking up.
The slideshow below contains a selection of shots taken during the recent “Take Great Photos” courses, which I hope you’ll enjoy.
Gavin, that looks like a lot of fun. Wish I were in Bangkok. And, well, it looks like the class consisted almost entirely of women. Wish I were in Bangkok!
YES YES YES YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I am SO in for a Photo Workshop when you come back in May to England. I shall email you for details. All my learning so far with the camera has been via books and well, you know I am stuck in aperture priority mode!
Jeff, 23 women out of 26 students! Although, to be fair, the morning class was a group of mothers who arranged the course themselves. They are known as the “Yummy Mummies”!
Vanessa, Is that a “Yes”? Got your e-mail, thanks, and I’ll be in touch about times and a location. I look forward to meeting up.
I’d love to meet up for a photo workshop AND a Lightroom tutorial… gawd knows I need ‘em!
But I’m thinking time restraints may conspire against me.
Any chance you could drop me a mail with details… dates, prices, locations, that sort of thing?
Masher, let’s see what we can do. It’d be great to meet up.
hi Gavin! i always enjoy ur photos
please keep me on the list for ur next courses 
I really look forward to be in ur photo class!! and so glad to know u plan for it 
Saranya, you’re definitely on the list so you’ll hear about our new course schedule first. I look forward to welcoming you to one of our courses. Cheers!
That looks absolutely fantastic, feels like I was there in the market with the rest of the school. Glad it went so well for everyone, that’s what teaching should be like! Not at all surprised to hear it worked out.
Excellent
I’m not sure i’d be able to make it for a workshop as life’s still pretty fluid at the moment and i’m finding it difficult to plan from day to day let alone one week to the next. Still, if you’re back in May and you get a free afternoon or evening i’d love to meet up again for a chat and a chance to put the world to rights.
Things have changed terribly here since you’ve been away and just this week has there’s been some shocking news on the bbc http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7973857.stm …that could well see rioting in the streets! at least it could if I have my way o_0
BIG BIG thanx Gavin!
[...] Shot the above at sunset last night at the pier. We spent alot of time at this pier, ate meals here, swam here. It just had so much character and the Apache restaurant at the foot of it, has tables along its length – perfect for sitting, relaxing, and having a drink. After I shot this I remembered a shot Gavin had taken some months back and wondered if it was the same pier – sure enough it was. Gavin shot wider at sunrise, I shot a little tighter at sunset – same great place. Might do a wallpaper of this for next month as a compliment to Gavin’s (link HERE) [...]