After almost a two year hiatus, I’ve enrolled in a new photography class, Studio and Lighting, at PhotoManhattan. This course was recommended by my instructor of Intro to Photography as a good way to practice achieving the proper exposure in my pictures. It also came recommended as I said I was interested in macro and product photography. The Studio and Lighting course lasts 7 weeks and is very technical in nature. The description from the school’s website is:
This course is a perfect mixture of basic and intermediate studio & lighting techniques. It is designed to teach students to accurately manipulate lighting in order to get exact results as well as to make creative studio imagery from portraiture to product.
I will admit I was a little turned off from the start: during introductions in the first class, I said I enjoyed shooting sports cars and the instructor snapped back she would not be teaching us how to light cars. However, having now been through two sessions, I realize this is an entirely different type of photography versus what I’ve done in the past. Having complete control of the lighting and exposure like you do in the studio is exactly how I’d want to shoot product photos, whether they were individual car parts or whole vehicles. While I’ve enjoying doing the race track panning shots in the past (and will likely continue that too), doing product photography is something I’d like to try. It is also probably my best chance to make money (if I started pursuing photography for that). Overall, I’ll learn a lot from this class regardless and the knowledge should be helpful in the future, whether directly or indirectly.