Between trips I’ve found it useful to hone my photo skills and practice using my cameras.  There is nothing worse than having a photo opportunity present itself and then fumbling with camera equipment to get the settings right, only to have the subject disappear or the lighting change.  Or worse yet, taking the picture with the wrong settings and getting something different than you want or a totally unusable picture.

A good photo course keeps me out shooting between trips providing both practice and new skills.  I recently completed a great online course through an organization called BPSOP (www.bpsop.com). It was “UNDERSTANDING EXPOSURE AND YOUR DSLR”. 

I’ve always wanted to learn how to take silhouettes and this course helped me set up my camera and use the position of the sun correctly.  The result of the course assignment was this photo of a statue at a local horse park early one morning. 

Two weeks later Sandy and I were in St Thomas.  Here’s a photo I never would have taken before this course.

A Fire in the Sky

Sunrise and sunset now have a different place in my photo repertoire. “