Goodbye to camera's automatic settings at Photography Workshop!

Story: Sanna Kuisma
International workshop led by professional photographer Rami Marjamäki collected some twenty students with different photography skills. The participants were divided to three groups: Group 1 was taking photos with white background, Group 2 with black background and Group 3 in a space with artificial light. All groups learned how to use both studio flashes and speedlights with main flash and  an external slave flash unit. We also used softboxes, coloured filters, umbrellas and reflectors to create different lighting settings.


The tasks weren't too exact, leaving us more possibilities for free expression and new ideas. At the end of the course we selected three photos to be printed in size A3, and presented 15 photos to other groups. On Friday we also had time to participate Backlight photo exhibition at TR1.

I learned interesting facts about promotional and magazine photography, and got also useful tips for photo editing. Before the course I used to shoot with automatic settings and modes, but after learning the principles of using ISO value, aperture size and shutter speed, I will use only manual settings for now on. I can recommend the workshop for everyone, whether you are more into learning manual camera settings, lighting, studio shooting or photo editing. Our printed nine A3 pictures will be later seen in a mini-exhibition at TAMK Finlayson area.

Photos: Riku Heino, Sanna Kuisma
Sanna is student of our international Degree Programme in Media
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