My sons first photography session

I have something a little different for you today. My son Stefan is studying Media at college and one of the things he has to cover is photography. He has chosen to do most of this assignment at Charlecote which for me is great as it gives us a little one to one time at a place I love, doing something I really enjoy. Perfect as far as I see it :) These photo's you will see in this blog are not mine. They are some of the photos taken by my son over the weekend.

We set off Saturday morning with our 2 camera's, me with mine and Stefan with my older one only to get there and find out that I had only gone and put the wrong memory card in his camera. I had picked the memory card up in a hurry, saw the numbers 16 on it and read no more. His camera stopped after taking only 3 photos...whoops...

I didn't want to spoil the day for him so I allowed him to use my camera instead. Can you imagine me walking around without a camera ????  :) 

Charlecote is ideal for someone studying photography at any level. The Estate is so large and has such a variety of things to photograph. You have the house, grounds, animals, river and lots more. Then there is the Historical side of Charlecote with lots of interesting items to photograph. You just need to look around.

As Stefan had not really done much photography before, I did not want to overwhelm him with too much information so we started with Aperture priority. I thought it was as good a place to start as any. He had been studying the theory at college but today we were going to put it all into practise. 

He had come home Friday with a list of things he needed to practise so that's exactly what we did and to be honest, he did really well for his first day out with me. Here are some of the things we covered from the list.

                                                       Natural Framing

Natural framing is so easy to do at Charlecote Park. From trees to the arches to the designs in the wall's. There is so much you could use on the estate for this one.

I love this first photo. It shows the deer waiting for the ranger to come over the bridge into West Park and bring their breakfast. It is beautifully framed by the trees of the avenue.

These are also waiting patiently. An arch in the trees.

The house also taken from the avenue.

Some natural framing through the arch of the gatehouse.

Movement

You have to be quick to catch these running so for these Stefan switched the mode to shutter priority so he could control that setting. I think learning about your camera in this way helps you to reach full manual in the end and many people are happy to carry on shooting in these two modes. It's not full manual but it allows you some control over what you are doing. 

                                                     

 I added these because I thought they were cute :) Not on the list of things to do but when you have a shot in front of you you take it!

This photo is lovely, when I enlarged it on my pc I could see all the water drops on the grass. 

     I few more deer photos Stefan took over the weekend.

A little tip when taking photos of animals and children...The best photos are taken at their eye level so never be afraid to experiment. With the use of digital camera's these days you can experiment all you like.

The next two photos are mine. I took these as an example just to show Stefan how he could make one place look very different just by changing his position. Too many people take photos always from their eye level height but sometimes it's nice to get lower down towards the ground to get a slightly different image. These two will show you what I mean. 

                          The first one was taken at eye level while standing.

The second image was taken in exactly the same spot but lower down closer to the ground. Look at the lovely reflections you get in the water and what was a small puddle, now looks like a narrow river.

       Some of the photos Stefan took from different angles.

We didn't cover even half the Estate over the weekend but here are a few other photos he took. I think for his first time he did amazingly and I am looking forward to him joining me on future escapes.

I really like this next photo. The tree branches go off in all directions and if you click on the image to make it bigger, you will see a squirrel in the middle of it all.

I think Stefan did an amazing job with these photos. It was his first time out on a photography session with me and the first time with a proper camera and not a snap and shoot one. I had a feeling he would do well as he is more arty like me. If you would have seen the drawing he did as a child you would be amazed. Such a shame he did not take art at school but then maybe he can use it through this instead.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing his work as I have loved adding them to my blog. Our next session will include depth of field and more detailed photography around the estate. I am really looking forward to it.