Ultimate Photography Programme

• Course Reviews

The Thursday webinars are very interactive and are often student led. As long as you’re a member, you will be registered for them indefinitely, so you can log in anywhere in the world to share your work with fellow students and have your photographs critiqued live by our experts.

Powerful Enhancement Semester

• Week 1: Camera Raw Processing

  Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, March 16, 2017, 11:30 PM

  The ability to shoot images that are completely unprocessed in camera gives you complete control over image quality. Shooting in Raw gives you greater control over exposure, tone, sharpness and compression. We will be looking at how using the camera raw processing software can give you much more creative capabilities, whilst maintaining the highest quality files possible from your camera.

• Week 2: Creating Black and White Images - Part 1

  Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, March 23, 2017, 11:30 PM

  Capturing amazing dramatic Black and White images requires a completely different thought process than shooting in colour. When shooting black and white images you focus much more on light, tone and contrast. In this lesson, you will learn how to develop this new thought process and visual awareness, for seeing and capturing pictures that will make stunning black and white images.

• Week 3: Creating Black and White Images - Part 2

  Tuesday, March 28, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, March 30, 2017, 11:30 PM

  Converting images from colour, into strong dynamic black and white images is no easy task. You will learn how to manipulate colours in an image, to create stunning tones and contrast when they are converted into Black and White. This will ensure you are producing images that resemble the work of the traditional masters of black and white photography.

• Week 4: High Dynamic Range (HDR)

  Tuesday, April 4, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, April 6, 2017, 11:30 PM

  HDR photography allows the photographer to create images with increased dynamic range. This is a photograph that is created by using multiple exposures, to create a scene that is full of detail, from the deepest blacks to the whitest highlights. The key to capturing successful HDR photos is preparation. In these lessons, you will learn how to properly set up for the HDR photo and then how to bring it together to create a stunning final photo.

Creative Techniques Semester

• Week 1: Low light Photography

  Tuesday, April 11, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, April 13, 2017, 11:30 PM

  After dark, the entire world changes and offers a completely different photographic experience. These lessons explore the exciting world of low light photography and the incredible images we can make with long exposures, drawing with light and using flash for extra impact. We will also explore astrophotography and the process of capturing the night sky.

• Week 2: Macro

  Tuesday, April 18, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, April 20, 2017, 11:30 PM

  Macro photography is photographing small objects or insects and is a hugely popular area in photography. This lesson explores all things Macro. The two biggest challenges for Macro photographers are getting close enough to the subject and getting enough light in the scene. We look at all the options here for creating stunning Macro photos and take a closer look at the world around you!

• Week 3: Advanced Lens Techniques

  Tuesday, April 25, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, April 27, 2017, 11:30 PM

  How many times have you captured a photo that you are proud of, only to view it closely afterwards on a monitor and be disappointed that it is not sharp? This is a frequent occurrence for photographers. There are steps that we can take to ensure the sharpest photos in any situation with any lens available to us. This lesson covers this in detail but also looks at other effects that you can achieve with our lenses such as Bokeh.

• Week 4: Colour Management and Output

  Tuesday, May 2, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, May 4, 2017, 11:30 PM

  When all the hard work is done and your images are looking amazing, you will want them to look as good in print as they do on screen. This can often be the most frustrating part of the photographic process. You can put in all of that hard work perfecting your images, only to get prints back that are either too bright or too dark. The colours can often be totally different than what you saw on screen. Colour management is essential to ensure you have consistent colour, tone, brightness levels, contrast from camera all the way through the post production stages, right up to the final print.

Mastering Light Semester

• Week 1: Advanced Exposure

  Tuesday, May 9, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, May 11, 2017, 11:30 PM

  In this lesson we will discuss in detail the cameras histogram and how this is an essential tool for making extremely accurate exposures in any lighting condition. It will also allow you to make critical decisions about your exposure, without relying on the visual image that your camera shows you on screen. The beauty of this knowledge is that you won’t even have to look at the image on the screen to know that you have the right exposure.

• Week 2: Mastering Exposure for Colour Images

  Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, May 18, 2017, 11:30 PM

  This lesson takes your abilities to refine and control exposure even further. It will look how spot metering can be used to meter different tones within your image, to identify how much light is being reflected from a variety of subject and tones, and create the best exposure in any situation. An advanced knowledge of the tones in your scene will ensure that you will always create accurate and consistent images.

• Week 3: Introduction to Flash Photography

  Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, May 25, 2017, 11:30 PM

  Having the skills and ability to use flash lighting in your photography is as important as being able to work with natural light. In this lesson we will be looking at all of the various uses of flash in photography. Flash is an essential tool to any photographer whether you just want to add a little bit of light to eliminate shadow or you want to light an entire scene. Knowledge on flash allows you to control and shape the light to create stunning images.

• Week 4: Studio Flash and Shaping Light

  Tuesday, May 30, 2017, 11:30 PM

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  Thursday, June 1, 2017, 11:30 PM

  In this lesson, we will be looking at how light can be shaped and manipulated to give you much more control over how your subject is represented. We will be looking at different styles of lighting commonly used in studio photography and the set ups to achieve them. This will broaden the range of lighting options you have when you are doing a studio shoot and expand your creative abilities.