[I mentioned the Nikon School when I posted my Day 10 photo and a few readers wanted to hear more about it, so here you go!]

I first learned about the Nikon School a year ago, when I got my DSLR.  I decided against enrolling at the time because I was going to attend some of the free workshops offered by the camera shop where Veronica bought my camera.  Anyone who knows me knows that I’m perpetually looking to learn and improve, and not just in photography, so I kept an eye out for future dates when the Nikon School would be back in my area, thinking it still might be useful for me to attend someday.

A little about the Nikon School- there are 6 instructors who work with the program, basically they travel the country giving the same courses over and over. Looking at the schedule, they come to Boston twice a year, so last weekend I finally took the Introduction to DSLR Photography and Next Steps: Color, Light, Technology courses.  The instructors were Bill Durrence and Michael Schwarz.

I figured that the Intro course might not be that useful to me, I’ve gotten pretty good with the technical aspects of photography, but thought I’d take it anyway, you never know what tips or tricks you might pick up.  Besides, knowing I wanted to take the Next Steps class, with the same instructors, it made sense from a continuity standpoint.

I’m not going to re-hash course content, if you click on the links to each course above you can see what they covered.

The course was held at Regis College, they rented the theater in the Fine Arts Center, and it wasn’t a bad place at all.  Bill mentioned that at other locations they use a hotel conference center, which means folding tables and hard chairs.  For a 7 hr/day course, I was thankful for comfy auditorium seating!  The course fee also included a brown bag lunch each day, which was actually pretty good.

There were sales reps from Nikon, Sandisk and Iomega with displays and literature on their respective products.  The Nikon table had some high-end cameras and lenses for us to handle, I got my hands on a D3X, now if only I could win the lottery and afford one…

Okay, impressions of the courses, in bullet form

• Bill and Michael REALLY know their stuff, technically and creatively (file that one under pointing out the obvious).  Good interaction with the class (all 200+ of us) and a fun sense of humor
• Due to the class size and time to get through the material, no questions are allowed during the presentations.  However there is scheduled Q&A time and Bill and Michael were available during breaks and lunch as well.
• They didn’t just cover photography itself, but also post-processing, on-line sharing, printing, and back-up considerations.
• Speaking of post-processing, I realize it’s a Nikon course, but I could have done without the hour or so spent talking about the Nikon Capture NX software.  A step-by-step tutorial on how to do something in that particular software package wasn’t a very good use of time when less than 10% of the students, by a show of hands, even use that software.  They could have gotten the same point across, that you can fix some ‘errors’ or save a ‘bad’ photograph with post-processing, without pushing the Capture NX software so hard.  But it is a Nikon course…
• If you’re not a Nikon owner, the courses could still be very helpful.  Just beware that when they start talking about on-camera controls, you’ll be own your own if your a Canon or Sony shooter, for example.
• I really liked the time spent critiquing photographs and how a good shot could be made better.
• The lighting demo, using a variety of off-camera flash techniques, was REALLY helpful, I’ve gained a new appreciation for the importance of good lighting

If you’re brand new to DSLR photography, the technical aspects of the class might be a little overwhelming.  Chatting with some others during lunch on Saturday, there were 2 people who just got their cameras for Christmas and were working hard to keep up at some points.

At the end of the weekend, both courses were certainly worth it for me.  I was reminded of some basics I had forgotten and learned several new tips and tricks.  I think 2 of the best lessons can be summed up in these quotes from the instructors-

Be ready for serendipity to happen

Learn to see the extraordinary in the ordinary