Getting Started with Portraiture

Instructor: Catherine Simmons
July 31, 2:30-5:30pm

Having the ability to take your own professional looking portraits can not only serve as a way to save some money on expensive studio portraits but can also be a way to beautifully document the people you love in a way that is meaningful to you and that represents your unique style of expression.

Register
Full Participation $99

Portraiture is one of today’s most valued genres of photography.

If you want to advance your portraiture skills and techniques and begin taking portrait images that are high in both quality and aesthetics, this class is for you.

Course Format

Catherine will cover solid portraiture tips and techniques to help you get started with your own Portraiture in the 3 hour Zoom course. She will conduct a live demonstration and students will be able to see her set-up, her lighting, her camera and her tethered computer.

The presentation and demonstration will be recorded for review at your leisure.

Assignments will reinforce the course material and video feedback will be posted.

Students will have access to Catherine via the "discussion" section for questions and support.

Class notes will be available to download.

All course content and recordings will be available thru August 14.

Topics covered include:

  • Baseline camera settings for portraiture (white balance, ISO, f/stop, Shutter Speed)

  • Composition (ie: hand placement, camera angle, filling the frame)

  • Posing Do’s and Don’ts

  • Evoking expression

  • Controlling the amount of light falling on your subject

  • Shooting portraiture with artificial light (continuous studio lights

  • How to control shadows to be hard or soft

  • How to correct White Balance using a gray card in Lightroom

Instructor(s)

Instructor

Catherine Simmons

Catherine is a studio and natural light photographer specializing in headshots and fine art portraiture. She has spent countless hours over the past 8 years fine tuning her skills in the studio and in Photoshop. When Catherine isn’t photographing, she can be found in the classroom sharing what she has learned with others. Helping people learn and grow into their full potential as artists is a true privilege and one that she takes very seriously. She has been a popular instructor at Capital Photography Center since 2018. Additionally, she volunteers tutoring photography students at her local community college, and has taught beginner's workshops through the United Nations Photography Club in Vienna, Austria, where she spent a year living abroad with her family. Catherine is currently a graduate student at Savannah College of Art and Design obtaining her Masters of Fine Arts degree in photography.