Be Smarter Than Your Camera! Beyond Beginners Digital Photography Workshop with Dave Strauss

Want to be smarter than your camera? This workshop is an introduction to the four fundamental variables in photography and the benefits and opportunities of photography in manual mode. The current generation of “smart” digital cameras has amazing capabilities, but they make decisions for you about focus, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO based on algorithms that may or may not comport with your creative intentions. This workshop is intended for smart-camera photographers who want to venture beyond the “green” and automatic scene modes, and to learn how manual mode opens up creative opportunities and improves photographs in challenging situations. Participants should have a digital camera that provides for manually setting aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and focus. Participants should determine how to switch into manual mode, and how to make changes to aperture, shutter speed, and ISO on their respective cameras prior to the workshop. This is NOT a beginning photography class. Participants should be familiar with their cameras and have some experience taking pictures with that camera.

Dave Strauss was born and raised in Marin County. He graduated from UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design and began a 43-year career in computer systems, industrial automation, and electronics. Dave has been an enthusiastic photographer since childhood. At age seven, his first camera was a Kodak Brownie. While he has made tens of thousands of photographs throughout his life, he re-engaged seriously and professionally with photography when he retired from the electronics industry in 2013. In recent years, his photos have won awards, been shown in galleries and museums, and have been published in many media, including magazines, books, websites, and scientific journals. Today, Dave operates from his studio in Oakland, specializing in wildlife, studio portraits, editorial, and advertising photography for periodicals, biological/paleontological research specimen imaging, and fine art capture. Visit Dave’s website here. The current art exhibit in Heron Hall is of Dave’s wildlife photography, “Form & Color: It’s Wild Out There,” and is on display through January 3, 2018.