INTENSIVE FOUNDATION COURSE IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography is one of the most popular, easily accessible and yet powerful mediums for documenting today’s time for posterity or even communicating as well as expressing. However, with dramatic shifts in socio-political environments across the globe, the audience’s sensibilities are also shifting. This calls for an urgent need for a shift in our communication mediums including visual communications.

Today, everyone with a smartphone is a photographer and even a citizen journalist. In such times, are techniques alone adequate, or do we need a deeper understanding of the visual language to help you distinguish your style from most others?

The five weekends digital still photography course at SACAC will introduce you to the technical aspects of photography through a structured programme that will build your knowledge and skills from the elementary level onwards. It will also introduce you to the nuances of the visual language, it’s grammar through simply illustrated lectures, which will eventually help you strengthen your photographic skills.

This five weekends intensive foundation course in photography lays emphasis on:

Fundamentals

• Photography as light-writing
• The Art and Craft that we call Photography
• DSLRS Vs Mirror-less cameras
• Camera Modes and creative choices
• Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO : The Trinity
• Depth of Field and creative choices
• Shutter Speed: Freezing action and motion-blurs
• Panning for creative motion images
• ISO/Speed. SNR and Noise issues
• Sensor sizes and Crop Factors
• Exposure and Exposure Triangle
• Histogram and Exposure Compensation
• Metering Modes
• Focussing modes and techniques.
• Single and Continuous Servo
• Single-point, Zone and Tracking
• Drive Modes
• Images formats: RAW vs Image
• Bit Depth
• Color Temperature and White Balance
• Color Profiles and Picture Modes

Composition, Lighting and Lensing

• Elements of composition
• Visual Intensity
• Lenses: Primes and Zooms. Wide, standard and Telephotos
• Creating desired Perspective with lenses
• Magnification
• Macro and close-up lenses
• Perspective Distortion and limitations of different focal-lengths

Lighting essentials for making compelling images with ordinary subjects in available light

Narrative Photography, story-telling and Storyboarding

• Looking at the Masters of Photography
• Landscape and Cityscapes
• Street and Culture
• People and Portraiture

2 Field Trips with detailed critiques

Visit to two sites with defined shooting objectives

Post-Production and way - ahead

• Essentials of post-production
• Working with RAW images
• Possibilities and protocols
• Furnishing a portfolio of images with emphasis on one’s strong areas
• Creative and commercial avenues in Photography

•  Operating a DSLR camera
• Develop a healthy understanding of different technical aspects of camera operation including lenses and how perspective shifts
• Superior technical skills and an aesthetic eye for high-quality compositions, ability to identify potential images and understanding of factors that lead to making of powerful images
• An eye for creating moody images using light and shadows
• Image editing using Adobe Lightroom

• Idris Ahmed
• Sharbendu De
• Sundeep Bali

• AC classroom with projector and iMac
• Fully equipped photographic studio with advanced lighting equipments and light shaping tools
• AC studio space for studio lighting practice
• Access to campus library and its stock of photobooks, monographs etc.