Monuments II – An Advanced Refresher Photo Safari

Saturday, May 19, 2012 | 2:30 pm-5:00 pm

OK, it’s been a long time since you took one of our Safaris and – dare we say it – you have forgotten half of what you learned!  Don’t worry!  You are not alone! We understand. You have been busy with OTHER things and your camera has been resting comfortably on a shelf, yes?

OR, you recently took Monuments and Memorials or one of our other travel Safaris and would like to take it up a notch to new techniques with your camera.

This refresher Safari – for which one of our other travel Safaris or equivalent experience is a prerequisite – will include a brief review of basic technique: holding the camera, posing people properly, using aperture and shutter priority settings, keeping verticals straight, using trees and flowers to frame your shots, getting low and close, etc. We will then move on to specialized lens use – wide angle and telephoto, “fast” big-aperture and macro lenses – using polarizer and neutral density filters, and to shoot on the scary “M” or “Manual” setting. We will show you how to take maximum advantage of the white balance menu of your camera for optimum color filtration, creative use of the ISO settings, how to make moving people disappear, how to do multiple exposures, and how to shoot in low light. If you have an auxiliary flash, we will show you how to use it properly.

Your instructor for this Safari is E. David Luria, founder and director of the Washington Photo Safari which has trained over 24,000 amateur photographers on 3,200 safaris since 1999.

Here is what you must bring to this Safari: your camera with all its lenses, your auxiliary flash (highly recommended for anybody who likes to take pictures of their children), a good sturdy tripod (optional) and a list of questions about anything you do not understand about your camera or troubles you are having with photography.  (There are NO stupid questions – each person’s question helps the other participants!)

Remember this: you hold in your hands a magic machine, a device capable of doing things no human can do. It can stop time,  it can see in the dark, freeze the wings of a hummingbird, make all the moving people in a train station disappear, turn waterfalls into misty clouds or a million little ice pellets, make small rooms look big, move the moon across the sky, bring the beauty of nature into your home and capture memories of your past in exquisite detail.

In short, cameras can move us to tears, to joy, and to wonder, all with the click of a button. In an instant, the images they capture speak 1,000 words. To become a photographer, you must know HOW to make these things happen by learning how to use ALL the features of your camera. THAT is what we will help you do on this advanced refresher Safari.

Our rain-or-shine venue for this Safari is the beautiful National Building Museum, the site of many Presidential Inaugural balls, with its huge atrium, the massive faux-marble columns, and its elegant fountain in the middle.  providing excellent opportunities to experiment with slow and fast shutter priorities, and the effect of wide angle, normal, and telephoto lenses on depth of field. We will also photograph the exterior of the building in the afternoon sun and the adjoining National Law Enforcement Memorial.