Photography Workshop: A Review of the Digital Photography Academy by Riaz K

We know that a lot of our mailers are passionate amateur photographers but who haven't had the opportunity to attend a sophisticated art school with state of the art facilities. Well here is where MCB must give mad props to Digital Photography Academy. The DPA holds classes all over the country and its workshop in Detroit is run by renowned pro photographers, Andy Greenwell and Stephen McGee.

The really cool thing about these classes are that their rates are split up for different classes so that those who want to attend the beginner classes don't have to pay as much as the pros who will be attending the advanced classes. This helps out those of us affected most by this crazy economy and also encourages the "hobbyists" to come out of their shells and expand their skill-set.

Classes are repeated every month and are held at a couple of different venues to allow for easy-access.

Even cooler is that you can get some basic tips and pointers from the website itself for free. It gives you a feel of how good the instructors really are and by going through the student's galleries, you realize just how much knowledge they've gained from just a couple of classes.

I had the massive privilege of checking out one of the intermediate classes held at Andy Greenwell’s studio last week.

The idea of the class was to get the students better acquainted with their DSLR cameras so that they were in better control of their equipment and switching to “auto” would no longer be a reflex.

Andy did a good job of addressing the basics of aperture control and depth of field and also touched on the fundamentals of the different metering modes without going in to too much detail.

The end result: the class got to understand the different factors that influence the amount of ambient light hitting the camera’s sensor.

Clearly Andy is a professional photographer who has considerable experience at conducting these educational workshops. Hewas very personable and was careful to check his pace with the class to ensure that the critical take-home messages were driven in effectively.
The class was small but that was a win-win for those in attendance: the pace was relaxed, everybody was able to ask questions at length, and then they had the added opportunity to spend a few minutes shooting with their gear and get some quick pointers from Andy right after class.

All in all, it was a great experience and if you’re considering stepping into the arena and using your new SLR to its full potential, it makes complete sense to get sound advice from the pro’s through their seminars and workshops.

Come September, I intend to check out the advanced class being conducted by Stephen McGee!