A look inside Focus on the Features – BEGINNER LEVEL

WHO SHOULD TAKE FOCUS ON THE FEATURES?
Anyone with a digital camera - it's perfect for true beginners, new camera owners or anyone who needs a "photography refresher"

THE COST?
$50 (Public Class or Clicks in Your Home); $75 (Clicks One-on-One)


WHAT KIND OF CAMERA DO I NEED?
Any kind of digital camera - a point and shoot or dSLR

HOW LONG IS THE COURSE?
Just 2 hours in length

Our introductory course to digital photography teaches all of the essentials “beginner tips and tricks” along with more in-depth photography concepts.  It is aimed to get anyone with any level of experience behind the camera understanding how to efficiently and properly operate their digital camera and produce better everyday photographs.  Often many lucky new camera owners are intimidated by all of the buttons on their fancy new camera and we designed this class to help true beginners and more experienced camera users alike. 

We ease into ‘what all of the buttons do’ by giving a brief rundown of universal features on all cameras – from deleting pictures to showing the difference between a compact point-and-shoot camera to a more sophisticated digital  SLR (and what SLR stands for!).  Focus on the Features helps you to venture off of “the green box” by covering: explanations of the standard preset shooting modes, how to achieve great focus, controlling your flash, we introduce the concept of ISO, and end with a section on best lighting situations for a beginner photographer. 

Our main goal of this course is to teach our participants that cameras create some incredible photographs when the user takes control and turns the dial away from Auto Mode.  We give you the confidence to try new shooting modes, tweak a few settings and get you to do much of it it as we go through our presentation.  All of our courses are accompanied by a visual illustration of everything we teach to help the learning process.  We’ve also provided many comparison slides (a photo taken in Auto Mode vs. a photo taken in Landscape Mode, for example) to show you exactly why you should be taking control and playing with your camera.

After this two-hour class you will not only have demystified a lot of the buttons and knobs on your camera, you will be inspired to try out a few new techniques and have some great pictures to show for it!

When, Where, and How Much?

We offer a lot of options for learning and people often ask us, "What is the best way to take a course?" and "How much do your courses cost?"  Information about pricing is always available on our blog, but we thought it would be helpful to give you a breakdown of costs in a post.  :)  Choose which option best suits your learning style, budget, and schedule.

There are four different ways to learn about photography with Clicks Gone Wild:

1.  Take a public course.  

We offer all four of our courses to the public throughout the year.  The majority of these courses take place in Arnprior, but occasionally we offer them in other places.  Anyone can register for a public course and join other people at a similar level of photography.  Each beginner course is $50.  The intermediate course is $75.  The price for the intermediate course reflects the more in-depth level of information being taught.  Also, as the difficulty level of our courses increase, class sizes are smaller.  We need a minimum number of participants in all courses to cover our time and rental of space.  The cost of The Magic of Manual Mode is $215.  It is our most advanced offering, four hours in length, and includes a booklet of comprehensive notes.

2.  Host a Clicks In Your Home Party.


You can choose to have Gemma and Rhonda come to you and your friends and teach any of the courses.  These courses are the exact same as the public offerings, except they are taught at a place and time that is most convenient to you.  Every host or hostess receives a $20 gift certificate to be used at a future course or to give away to a friend.  More details about Clicks In Your Home are available here: http://clicksgonewild.blogspot.ca/p/be-clicks-host.html  We make hosting easy for you by customizing an e-mail for you to send out to all your friends and providing the education and entertainment at your gathering.  This is so much fun!  Also, if you do not have the minimum number of participants, you and your friends can decide to split the minimum cost for a Clicks In Your Home party.

3.  Take a course one-on-one.


Both Rhonda and Gemma are available to teach any course to you one-on-one in a private session.  There is an increased cost for this option.  For example, a beginner course which is $50 in a public group, is $75 in a private session.  We are available at your convenience, with a focus on weekday days or evenings, and the occasional weekend date.  Contact us and we will find a time that works for you.

4.  Book us for private tutoring.

If there is a specific area of photography that you would like to learn more about, private tutoring may be for you.  This is different from taking a course with set topics.  For private tutoring, one of us will contact you to discuss exactly where you are at in your photographic journey and what topics you would like to focus on in your session.  The hourly rate of $50/hr. includes this phone or e-mail consultation.

Please see the below chart for all costs associated with our courses and if you have any additional questions, feel free to contact us.



Our final public courses before Summer are being offered in Arnprior on June 11, 13, and 25.  After that, public courses will resume in Fall.  We are still available for private tutoring and Clicks In Your Home over the Summer months.  :)

Amazing Colours!

If I have the time, one of my favourite things to do on a Monday afternoon is spend some time in my kitchen chopping up good food to have as easy-grab snacks throughout the week.  Today's treats were so colourful, I couldn't resist photographing them to show you what proper colour can do for your images - make them pop!

If you find colour is just "off" in your photographs, we can help you figure out why in our intermediate course, Step It Up, Shutterbug! being offered this Wednesday, May 30th in the Richard John Meeting Room at Lorne's Electric, starting at 7 pm, and again on Monday, June 25th, same place, same time.  To register for either of these courses, send us an email here.   In Step It Up, Shutterbug, we teach you how to get proper colour in your photos and use colour effectively when composing your images.  We also teach how to adjust shutter speed and aperture, and why, as well as metering modes, and more.

There is no pre-requisite to this course.  If you feel you are ready for intermediate photography, then this is for you!  Also, if you took Mastering the Basics, Part 2, in the past, you can come back for a refresher and qualify for our alumni rate for this course.  This is a great deal seeing as we have added more topics!

My two oldest kids better hurry home from school, because Little Miss got her hands on the fruit and is making a good dent in the bowl!

What do you think I should do with this beautiful rhubarb that my mom passed my way?  Make strawberry-rhubarb crisp for dessert, of course!  But first, I'm heading back outside to enjoy this beautiful day.

Have a happy Monday!

Rhonda

Capture The Moment With Manual Mode

"Flowers" picked for Mommy last a little while.  An image lasts forever.  How do you want your forever-memories to look?

These two images were taken moments apart with a beautiful camera.  Your camera is a fantastic tool that can help you take pictures, but the important part of this equation is you and your knowledge and skill.  Do you own a dSLR and still struggle with proper exposure, focus, and colour?  Learn how to take control of your settings on that camera and shoot in full Manual Mode with our course The Magic of Manual Mode, Sunday, May 6 at noon, just outside of Arnprior, Ontario.  Contact us today by email at clicksgonewild@gmail.com for last-minute registration. 

Thank You, Women of Renfrew!!

Rhonda and I are recovering this morning from a busy afternoon and evening of spreading the word about our courses and passion for photography! We were proud to be one of the 60 vendors with a display at the 6th annual Girls' Night Out in Renfrew.

I grabbed this photo of our display quickly before the doors opened at 5 p.m. There was a steady flow of ladies through the door until 10 p.m., we were beyond impressed with the turnout. (The no kids/no men allowed in the building policy proved to be an excellent excuse for many gals to get together and enjoy the night.)  We heard that more than 700 gals attended the event - WOW!!!

Thank you to everyone who stopped by our table to chat and learn more about what we do - the feedback and encouragement was incredible! (We both were losing our voices around 9 p.m. from talking non-stop to so many lovely ladies about our program!) A special big thank you to our former students who kindly shared glowing reviews of their experience with us. :) It means a lot to us to hear the positive response from the friends we've made on this exciting Clicks journey.

We look forward to hearing from our new Clicks friends who expressed interest in our public courses, Clicks in Your Home program or private tutoring. If you're just checking us out today for the first time, take a peek at the tabs above to learn more about the topics covered in each of our courses and learn more about Rhonda and I as instructors. We also invite you to pop over to our Facebook page and 'Like' us, and share our information with your friends.

I've noticed there's already a few new Facebook likers and e-mail inquiries this morning... we can't wait to help each of you demystify those buttons, make sense of your settings and let you go wild taking beautiful photos!!  :)

Have a fantastic rest of the weekend, everyone!
Gemma

Capture Your Everyday Moments Confidently

There were big smiles all around yesterday as I sat at my computer with my three-year-old and showed her pictures of this cat.  This is our neighbour's pet, and earlier in the day, my daughter was quite concerned that she was "stuck" in the culvert at the end of our driveway.

All of these images were taken in Manual Mode, which gives the photographer complete control over the exposure triangle.  Manual Mode allows you to take the pictures you envision in different lighting situations, with all sorts of subjects.  And we can teach you how!  Clicks Gone Wild's next course date for the Magic of Manual Mode is Sunday, May 6, from noon to 5 p.m., in Braeside.  To register, send us an e-mail at clicksgonewild@gmail.com .

Learn Manual Mode and feel the same sweet success that my daughter felt when she "rescued" this feline friend.  :)  Your every day is beautiful and meaningful. Capture it with confidence.

Rhonda