Bastille Day

Wednesday, July 14

Our last day of the retreat was Bastille Day. One day I'd like to be in Paris for Bastille day and see the fireworks at the Eiffel tower.

We started the day by going to Sarlat for their outdoor market.

By my pictures you can clearly see that I was way more fascinated by the buildings than I was by the food.

The one thing that caught my eyes was the bread. Oh how I love bread.

I also decided to grab a macaroon at the local market. Sadly still not something I crave/miss dearly/wish I could eat all the time

On the way back we stopped by this beautiful sunflower field to take some pictures.

We had lunch and then had a class on Tabletop photography. Nicole's specialty.

I thought the tabletop part was the most interesting/different thing we did and I wish we could have spent more time doing this. One day I hope to take a tabletop photography class from Nicole.

We had other classes on window lighting, flattering posing, short photoshop workflow. We then got some time to edit our pictures and show them for critique to Nicole or Candice.

I learned something while editing my pictures, I center everything!!! It drove me nuts while looking through my pictures. I've now made an effort to stop centering things. I have a harder time with composition than anything else. What can I say? I've never taken an art class, and my brain is very left oriented. :-)

Our hotel

In the evening we had dinner together, and afterwards I took a walk around the village and snapped some pictures

At night we headed to Domme for fireworks since it was Bastille Day. Domme is beautiful! I loved it. Tyler and I have talked about going to the Dordogne area one day with our kids, and I'll definitely be going to Domme.

The fireworks were nearly as impressive as the ones we have here, but it was still fun to go.

I loved the photo retreat. I learned so much. I think that if anybody is going to buy an expensive DSLR that a class to learn how to use the camera, or some serious self teaching is a must. I have not gone back to AV mode since then, except for things that require me to be too quick like any boat/bus tours where I simply don't have the time to change my setting for correct exposure. I will also switch the camera to AV setting if I'm handing it to a stranger who doesn't know what they're doing so that we can get a decent picture at times, sometimes I set the setting prior to handing it to them and leave it on manual.

There's definitely a learning curve with the Manual mode. I just recently started feeling comfortable with it and it's been two months since the retreat. Practice, practice, and more practice is really the only way that will improve your pictures. Having a fancy camera doesn't make great pictures, half of it is the person behind the camera, and in my opinion it's not so much on the camera, but your composition skills.

I would highly recommend taking a class to learn the camera though. Nicole offers online classes and so does Candice with Jessica Sprague. Other possibilities are community colleges, photography groups, local community classes, or other photographers that offer classes. There are also a number of tutorials and websites available that will teach you how to use the camera and tips on improving your pictures.