|
|
|
South Africa Wildlife Photography Course
Example Itinerary
To give you a clear idea of what your course entails, we have put together an example itinerary. This varies according to the weather, the interests of the group and the overall aims of each student.
Day one
Arrive at the bush camp and an introduction to the photographer, guide and course leader. You will then have a group discussion, which includes getting to know everyone’s photographic background and hearing about what everyone hopes to achieve from the course. You will also be discussing how each participant can work towards creating an electronic portfolio that comprises 15 high quality images shot during the course of the week. During Day One you also receive a talk on bush safety and camp rules. You can then relax, enjoy dinner at the camp and chill-out for the remainder of the evening.
Day two
The day will start with the course’s first early morning game drive before breakfast. This includes bush behaviour on vehicle, bush familiarisation and gives you a chance to become comfortable with your new surroundings. After breakfast, the group has a Theory Session, covering subjects such as formats, quality and styles, Digital and Film Pros and Cons. After a break for lunch the Theory Session continues with a class on moving away from automatic settings and getting to know different settings: Focusing Techniques, Shutter Speeds, Aperture Settings, Film speeds (Film and Digital).
In the afternoon there is time for an Evening Game Drive out in the field. The session aims to utilize your newly learnt skills and begin to experiment with low light images of dusk light and the sunset. This uses the manual setting to change the shutter speed and the aperture setting whilst experimenting with focal length. Again, you will finish the day with dinner at the camp.
Day three
You can enjoy a morning game drive before breakfast and have another chance to practise your new skills. After breakfast there is a Theory Session, which will look at: Image – Importance of Positioning/Horizon Lines/Subject/Framing - look at the behaviour and habitat, time of year etc.
Image Editing - In this session you will be uploading images you have shot so far. Now you will start to put into practice the theory side of Photoshop, editing on your uploaded images. This includes resizing images, changing the colour balance and contrast, rotating images and a number of other edit techniques. This shows you how simple adjustments can make a good photo look even better. Students also learn how to save their work onto CD in different file formats such as JPEG, TIFF, PSD and what each of the format mean and why each one is used.
After lunch, the group put their skills into practice on an afternoon/evening Game Drive. Dinner is at the camp.
Day four
A practical morning session out in the field provides the group with the chance to shoot in Black and White. After breakfast there is a session where you can develop your Black and White images and learn about how to set up a dark room.
If all of the students have digital cameras and are more interested in digital then an alternative workshop will be arranged. After lunch, there is another session out in the field where you will be shooting in Black and White in the afternoon/evening light. A further practical session includes a Celestial Photo Shoot where students learn about low light and night-time photography for example, photographing the stars over a period of one to two hours and how they trace light across the film/censor. Dinner at the camp.
Day five
A morning Game Drive/Walk allows students to practise photographing the landscape. The main aim of this session is getting students to think about what they photograph and to start to think about the simple rules of photography, such as perspective, composition, the use of natural lines that draw the
viewer into the photograph, the level of the horizon, shooting away from the sun so as to maximise light and reduce glare and show how simple imagery can be just as powerful as more complex imagery.
After breakfast students take part in a Theory/Practical Session on how to capture movement.
After lunch you go out into the field for an afternoon Game Drive/Hide to practise shooting movement in Nature. After this session, there will be a critique class to choose the strongest images of each student and discuss why each worked. Dinner at the camp.
Day six
This morning you enjoy a practical session out in the field on a morning Game Drive, or at a Hide. After breakfast, a theory session covers magazine and brochure layout and formats.
The purpose of the session is to show how to put your images into a Brochure/Magazine format in Photoshop and how to put text over images. After lunch, there is an afternoon game drive, or Hide shoot, before setting off back to camp to discuss and select your best 15 images from the whole week. You will find it a daunting task trying to choose from all of the amazing shots that you will have. Dinner at the camp.
Day seven
Today will be your last opportunity to put your skills into practise and get the excellent wildlife shots that you are all after while on your final morning game drive. After breakfast, the group spends time creating individual electronic portfolios. These are uploaded and then each individual’s chosen images are edited and downloaded onto a CD ready to view at the Digital Gallery. In the afternoon you will have time to relax with the group and have a final farewell dinner together. The highlight of the evening is a mass viewing session of all the photos you have all taken.
Day eight
After breakfast all the students receive a certificate for their time on the course, before departing the camp for onward travel, or returning home.
|
| |
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
