As the evening light started to soften outside, plates & forks were traded out for notebooks & PaperMate Flairs (my favorite!) as the kitchen emptied out & the living room filled up. The dogs both settled in too as I took a deep breath, shared a bit of my story, and then started to walk step by step through the basics. Because we aren’t born knowing how to use a camera, and that camera wasn’t made to see the world as you see it. So we started in the best place possible… from the beginning. The slides clicked by on the screen as notebook pages filled up & heads started to nod in understanding. Armed with a new vocabulary, we spilled out onto the patio & roamed the backyard to let those words & concepts move through our fingers and onto buttons & dials to create that combination of settings, and watching the back of the camera screen show visible proof of newly acquired skill.
I hosted my first Light Lessons Workshop on Saturday evening, and I had so much fun! It was a joy to be able to welcome women into my home & get them started with the basics of using their cameras in manual mode. And as I watched them finally getting the results they wanted from their “nice camera” that’s typically produced just frustration & disappointment in the past, I could almost hear the sound of the lightbulbs going off.
You know me, so you know we had to have food… and thankfully Keikilani of All My Good Things was kind enough to bring the goods – and man, did she bring the goods! We got distracted chatting before everyone else arrived for the workshop & I only photographed the cake, but everything she made was delicious! Thanks, Lani!!!
A few hours after the workshop, I got a text message from Julia with images she’d taken during the workshop & words of excitement and gratitude: After thanking me for the information and praising my teaching skills, she said “I already feel so much more confident using manual mode.”
And that right there? That made me so dang happy. Being a part of that lightbulb moment, a leap in skill AND a boost in confidence is exactly what I wanted this workshop to be!!
(I do have to be honest & admit one big ol’ workshop failure… I got so caught up in welcoming everyone, then teaching & then checking in on everyone during the practice portion that I barely got any photos, so maybe I’ll have to have one of my round 1 alumni come photograph the next one for me!)
If you’re interested in attending the next Light Lessons Workshop, send an email to brooke@bmariephoto.com or drop your email address in the comments below, and I’ll be sure you get all the info as soon as registration goes live!!
