Well, week one of the Summer Intensive course at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography is officially finished.  Honestly, it felt much longer than a week.  I don’t know if it’s because we have classes six days a week or the length of each class period (typically 4 hours) or a combination of both, but I feel like I’ve been here for a couple weeks already.  They weren’t kidding when they named it Summer Intensive.  (Although, the summer part needs work.  High’s in the 50’s, lows in the low 40’s.  That’s not summer weather, even in Montana).

The beginning of the week was mainly about preparation.  We covered the basics of what type of equipment would be needed and where to get more (at a discount).  They made sure everyone’s computer was set up properly with the required software.  The covered where to shoot in Montana and how to not get eaten by a bear. :)  And they spent some time getting to know each of us and helping us get to know one another.

And that was just the first day of classes.

As the week progressed, we started covering the basics of photography: shutter speed and aperture.  We covered how to control them in the camera and how they relate and affect the final image.  Most of it was a review for me, but I picked up a few tidbits along the way, such as where to set your focus when shooting a picture with a large depth of field.  They encouraged those of us that were familiar with these concepts to start shooting in manual mode to really drive home the relationship between the two.   When shooting in Av or Tv modes (that’s Canon terminology), it’s easy to ignore what adjustments the camera makes for you.  I found that shooting in Manual in a controlled environment (i.e. indoors) isn’t that difficult, but in a variable environment (such as outdoors on a partially cloudy day) it gets much tougher.  The light keeps changing so if you’re not quick enough between setting the right exposure and composing you shot, you may have to start all over.  It can get really frustrating.  But, I’m working on it.

Tomorrow is a day off so a bunch of us are going on a little trip to a nearby ghost town to, of course, take some pictures.  I’ve never been to a ghost town so it should be interesting.   I’m sure you’ll get to see some results if you follow my Flickr stream.

Now for the really good news…I got my 5D back!!!  The shop where I took it to be fixed was able to do it in house and didn’t have to send it out to Canon.  If they would have sent it, it probably wouldn’t have been ready for 3-5 weeks.  That would of sucked.  But, I’m happy now because I have it back and the repair was only $130.  I was expecting much higher.

Finally, I ran a couple of times this week…or tried to.  Either I got out of shape really quickly or the move from an elevation of ~1500ft to 3300ft has a bigger effect than I would have thought.  The first time, I was sucking wind after about 6 blocks!  That’s pathetic.  I probably only ran about a mile and half before I just walked home.  The second time I probably went closer to two and ran the whole way.  I feel like such a wuss.  It’s been a long time since I haven’t been able to run at least three miles.

Well, that about sums it up from Montana.