Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - FE680: See the Dog: Developing Your Photographic Vision

Course Details

This photography class will be unlike any of my other courses. We will combine all of our knowledge — how to use a camera, how to set exposure, how to compose an image, how to process an image — and use it to create an image that says what you intend it to say. You will not learn any new tools, but you will learn to make better use of the tools you already have.

Some of the questions we will discuss include:

What things should you consider before you start photographing? (Gear, weather, subject, etc.)
What should you consider as you are photographing? (Angle of the sun, height of camera and/or subject from the ground, background, lens choice, focus point)
How do you pick the best shot? (criteria for editing)
What should you look for when processing your images? How can you use Lightroom to create the story you want your viewers to see?

There will be (short) discussion/writing assignments as well as photo labs. It will be a collaboration of ideas between colleagues, not a set of instructions from a teacher to be followed by students.

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Prerequisites & Supplies

This class is intended for advanced photographers. You are expected to know how to use manual exposure to take a properly exposed image. You are expected to know how to use Lightroom (or other similar software) to develop your images in the digital darkroom. You should know what the basic elements of composition are, even if you're not 100% sure how to apply them.

If you have taken my other courses, you have all of the equipment you will need. This includes, but is not limited to, a DSLR or mirrorless camera with full manual controls and lens(es) appropriate for the subject you want to photograph. You should be working with a color-calibrated monitor. (Psssst, if you haven't calibrated recently, be sure to do that before class starts.)

Sample Lecture

In my other classes, I have used the phrases “safety shot” and “sketch images”. I don’t remember where I originally heard the term “safety shot”, but “sketch images” is a phrase I’ve unapologetically adopted from David duChemin. (More from him later.)

Safety Shots

Safety shots are the obvious photos. They are the photos you take when you’re afraid your subject will leave quickly or when you don’t know what else to do. They aren’t usually the most creative option, but they are a solid starting point. Your safety shot insures you aren’t going home empty-handed.

Taking a safety shot is one way to take the edge off of the intense drive to “TAKE A PICTURE, TAKE A PICTURE, TAKE A PICTURE!” Get your safety shot, then use that as a jumping off point for other possibilities. Look at what you have and then start asking questions.

What if I changed my perspective?
How would this look from a different angle — lower, higher?
What if I framed it tighter? Looser?
How would it look in a vertical rather than horizontal orientation?
Is there a time of day or year that would be better to photograph this subject?
Is there a lens or focal length that would capture the subject better?

These aren’t the only questions, but it’s a start. Obviously you may not have the opportunity to implement all of the options, but by asking a few of them, hopefully you can move from your starting point and start to sketchother images.

Sketch Images

Art is an iterative process.

When a painter is starting a new work, they will often begin with multiple sketches of the thing they want to paint. They work out many of the details before putting brush to canvas.

Authors also work with sketches, but they call them rough drafts. No author publishes their first version of a book. The book goes through multiple drafts and is edited by someone other than the author before it hits the shelves.

Inexperienced photographers are often under the impression that the pros are able to make a perfect photo every time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Behind every breathtaking image is a series of missteps, false starts, blurry images, and plain old crap. But every one of those bad photos taught the photographer something and is an essential part of making the final image as amazing as possible.

That series of images that come before the final one are the sketch images. A safety shot is your first sketch image.

The emphasis in this class is not going to be on polished images, at least not to start. I don’t want to see the photo you think is your best. I want to see your process. Show me your sketch images and your safety shots.

How I use Safety Shots and Sketch Images in my Photography

My three main photography loves are dog agility, bird photography, and landscapes involving water. Let me briefly describe my sketching process for each of those different types of photography.

Dog Agility

When you are photographing dog competitions, you only get one chance at each dog. There is no way to ask the judge to let the competitor do their run over again so you can improve on your shots. In these circumstances, each dog becomes the sketch image for the next dog in the ring.

I always feel bad for the first 3-5 dogs on the course at a national agility event. I always know what obstacles I want to photograph, but until I’ve seen a few dogs run the course, I’m never 100% sure how the shots are going to work. Or if they’ll work at all! I miss more of the shots for the first 3-5 dogs than I do for the rest of the competitors because I’m working out the logistics and details for each shot that I’ve lined up. By the end of the day, my shots are almost automatic.

It used to take me a lot longer to get the flow of a course, but my years (er, decades?) of experience allow me to settle in much faster than I used to. Usually. I still get flummoxed by some courses and feel like I’m fighting for the shot with every. single. dog. But even on those courses, I’m able to take what I learn from one dog and apply it to the next.

Bird Photography

Birds are another subject that aren’t usually willing to let you take your time and sketch to your heart’s content. They move unexpectedly and fly away on their timeline, not yours.

I take a similar approach to sketching birds that I do with dogs. Every bird I photograph is a sketch for the next one. My photos of Great Gray Owls have consistently improved over the years because I know how to anticipate their behaviors better.

Here’s a specific example. I held a bird photography workshop in Arizona last fall (Oct 2018). Several of the days were spent at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum photographing their Raptor Free Flight. The first day I got there, my photos were terrible. I had been there two years prior, so I knew a little bit of what to expect, but I still didn’t get anything I was truly proud of. I didn’t know where the birds were going to go, I didn’t know what species would be flying, I didn’t have a good sense of where the light would be, etc. etc. I couldn’t decide if I wanted perched shots or flight shots, so both were mediocre. It was a mess.

I returned to the museum five more times over the next week. The first three days I was on my own, scouting for my workshop. The other three days were part of the workshop. Every time I returned, I had a plan for what I was going to do differently.

Day 2: concentrate on the flight patterns of the birds and watch how they land and take off

Day 3: pick a spot for flight shots, not perched. Pay attention to the light and the wind. Shoot at a shorter focal length so that wings aren’t clipped. Use a full frame camera instead of crop factor camera.

Day 4: Use a shorter lens. Continue to focus on flight shots.

Day 5: Stick with full frame camera and shorter lens. Improve on flight shots from previous day.

Day 6: Same gear as Day 5 and further refining of flight shots.

By Day 6, I was feeling really confident in my choices of gear and shooting positions. I was able to anticipate where the birds would go. I could read their body language better and knew when they would launch for the next perch. I got multiple keeper shots, including these two below.

Landscapes

Landscape photography is the one area where sketch images are the most intuitive. I can visit a place over and over again and try different perspectives each time. I also have the time to try multiple sketch images in one visit. I do have to remind myself to *move* once I’ve taken several images from the same place.

The link below is to a series of images of Gooseberry Falls was taken in one session last summer. They are all images that I chose to process, but they all have 4-6 other similar sketch images to go with them. If I had the chance to return that week, I would have tried a few other angles and positions, based on what I saw in my photos from that night.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/j3ooSBy3NURSSNaQ8

Testimonials

A sampling of what prior students have said about this course ...

This class was great for putting together all the pieces of making a great, compelling image. It utilizes all the skills from the previous Fenzi photography classes and takes us a step closer to capturing our vision for our subjects. Highly recommend this class.

Amy is a gifted teacher. She is extremely knowledgeable and shares that knowledge in a way that is easy to understand. She provides plenty of homework and gives the support to grow and learn through the challenges. Awesome teacher and exceptional person!

This class was amazing, and so helpful! Thanks so much!

Great class. Enjoyed, felt like the only bronze-so would have loved a silver option. but know how busy gold was, so I get it. I would LOVE a Sketch the Dog class. Using some of the sketching exercises from here, but adding on the go shoot wide...to go shoot vertical, shoot close/far or varied light angles. breaking the habits we may into. or the multiple angles of same object. blending and developing from learned so for We all felt like pros in this class. Not saying we are, but it built confidence in us that allowed further exploring of our craft and developing skills. Pretty awesome stuff. and, getting dogs to be our subjects allows fro fun, humor, cookies and relationship building. Win. Win. all around.

Registration

There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please subscribe to our mailing list for notifications.

Registration opens at 10:30am Pacific Time.

FE680 Subscriptions

	Gold	Bronze
Tuition	$ 260.00	$ 65.00
Enrollment Limits	18	Unlimited
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