Training Classes for 
Plano Photography Club and Dallas Camera Club Members

DCC Training Tuesday - Every 1st and 3rd Tuesday

PPC Training Thursdays - Every 2nd and 4th Thursday

DCC Members access codes HERE You must be a member and logged on to see this page. 

Current and Pending Classes

How I Made It

The story of a photograph is less about the lens, the f-stop, and shutter speed and more about the moment the photographer decided to make a photograph. In these sessions, photographers will discuss what prompted them to make a photograph. Where were they? What feeling did they have about the location? What drew them to make that particular photograph? Why did they choose the gear and settings they used? How did they process the photograph to realize their vision? Did they choose a particular paper to print the image? Hopefully these stories can help us learn to see a scene better.

Two excellent books illustrating the power of the story are:
Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs - Ansel Adams
Light on the Landscape - William Neill

Image Study Group

Participants share images and discuss them. The leader my demonstrate potential improvements.

Photojournalism
Larry Petterborg
Description: Photojournalism is a form of documentary photography that goes beyond merely depicting a scene to telling a story about people and events. This class will cover the development of photojournalism, from the earliest days of photography to the present. Classic and iconic examples of the genre will be discussed as a way of exploring the elements of a memorable image.

Selections in Photoshop
Craig Rowen
Description: Their are many ways to make selections in Photoshop. This class will give an overview of the many options and dive into the most used methods.

Fun with Photoshop
Heidi Phillips

Lightroom: From Camera to Print
Dennis Fritsche
Description: This class concentrates on the Library, Develop, and Print modules of Lightroom Classic. We explore the power of the Library module to help you mange your photographs, the basic and advanced techniques to refine your images in the Development module, and the details of outputting to paper from the Print module. 

Photography Fundamentals ZOOM Study Group led by Bud Mallar 
(Limited to 10 Participants)

The purpose of this Plano Photography Club (PPC) Study Group is to provide a basic understanding of the workings of photographic equipment to enhance the participants' ability to capture technically 'better' images, to be more creative, to make taking pictures easier, and to determine what ‘equipment’ they ‘really’ need.  It may be expanded to include an orientation to Lightroom for those interested. 

This group, open to PPC, Heard Nature Photographers Club (HNPC) and Dallas Camera Club (DCC) members, will gather via an online Zoom meeting every two weeks, on a Thursday night, a total of four times starting May 13^th, 2021.  The recorded sessions, along with other class materials, will be made available on appropriate club websites.

These are not stand-alone sessions; you should plan on attending all four as they build on each other. These are also not just sit and listen lectures, there will be homework and exercises to help you understand the concepts, reinforce class presentations and the sharing of participant efforts.

This group is limited to the first 10 participants who sign up ahead of time by sending an email to bmallar@yahoo.com.  Preparatory information will be sent to you before the sessions start and the email list will also be used for distribution of additional materials once we get going.

Zoom meetings normally follow a lecture format for ‘large’ groups, but we hope to incorporate interactive discussions for a couple of these, and with the improving COVID environment maybe we’ll be able to get together for in person small group outdoor workshops or small group follow-on sessions. 

Please note the target audience for these sessions is ‘beginning’ photographers and therefore covers basic information on photography, but anyone wishing to learn more or discover alternative ‘ways of doing things’ is invited. 

The sessions will cover the following areas: 

1.  The Exposure Triangle – the ‘use’ of ISO, shutter speed, f/stop for better exposures, enhanced creativity and dealing with difficult lighting situations.    May 13^th, 7:30 PM, 1.5 hours.

2.  Why are there so many buttons on my camera and how to use them to take better pictures.  May 27^th, 7:30 PM, 1.0 hour 

3.  The equipment (camera, tripods, lenses, filters, spares, personal items, gadgets, etc.) which should be in a 'camera bag' – what, why and how to use them.  Jun 10, 7:30 PM, 1.5 hours

4.  What do you do when it rains and other ideas on composition.  Jun 24, 7:30 PM, 1.0 hours

There is no cost, nor required equipment, but you must be a member of PPC, HNPC or DCC to participate. 

If you have any questions contact Bud Mallar at bmallar@yahoo.com

Ask Me Anything
Dennis Fritsche
Description:  This is an open session to discuss anything photographic - cameras, Lightroom, color management, technique, gear, printing, travel planning, back-up strategies, whatever. If I don't know, someone else in the room will. It is a great place to learn something new. If you have a problem image or a question, email it to me at dennisfritsche@verizon.net.

Completed Classes

Printing and Mounting Your Photographs
Dennis Fritsche

Description: Ansel Adams famously said “The negative is the score, and the print the performance." This remains true in the digital age as well. Prints provide a unique opportunity to enjoy, display and share our photographs.  This class will demonstrate the basics of printing your photographs or preparing them to be printed by a service.  It will also demonstrate how to mount a photograph for display and judging.

File Formats in Photography

Davis Swinney

Description: In photography, we are presented with a variety of file formats – JPEG, TIFF, RAW, DNG, PNG, etc. These sessions will unravel the terminology and help you understand what they are and when to use them.
Session 1: (RAW and XMP) vs. DNG - the pros and cons of each file type along with usage scenarios/workflows

Session 2: Using Different File Types When Roundtripping between Lightroom and Photoshop 

Preparing Slideshows
Dennis Fritsche

Description: During the club year, we can share our photography and creativity with our fellow members with slideshows. These sessions will use Photostage Slideshow Software from NCH Software. We will cover considerations for choosing and sequencing the slides, creating title slides, when to use and not use special effects, how to find and add music, and how to prepare the final product into a movie that displays well on Zoom.

Techniques to Expand the Capability of Your Camera
Frank Richards

Description: Today’s cameras are marvelous instruments with capabilities unimaged just a few years ago. However, there are some things that are currently beyond our camera’s capabilities. We can capture multiple images and combine them in post processing to overcome some of these limitations. Frank will explore in three situations where multiple images can be combined to create a new image that exceeds the exposure range of your camera’s sensor or exceeds the viewing angle or depth-of-field limitations of your lenses. These three techniques – HDR (High Dynamic Range), Panoramas, and Focus Stacking – will each be addressed in a separate session.

What Judges Look For
Larry Petterborg

Description: As both clubs move from one contest year to the next, it is good to keep in mind What Judges Look For when judging a club contest. Larry shares his observations from competing and judging other clubs for many decades into a helpful set of observations.

Street Photography

Hugh Adams
Description: This training session will include the history and definition of street photography, including examples, equipment, approaches, composition, locations, ethics, legality, and resources of street photography.

Luminosity and Color Masks in Photoshop
Anita Oakley

Description: Luminosity and color masks allow you to make edits to your images that would be impossible without them. They can be as intricate as a single shade in the leaves of trees. They also blend beautifully so the edits appear more natural. However, manually creating luminosity masks is a difficult and time-consuming process. Ted Kuyper’s TK7 Rapid Mask module makes them a snap! We will edit three images and show you how effective and easy they really can be.

Photographing Moving Water
Alan Whiteside

Description: Whether you’re photographing naturally moving water (e.g., a creek, ocean, even rain) or an artificial source (e.g., a faucet, fountain, fire hydrant), there are numerous considerations that affect the final image. We will explore these factors, which range from your own safety, to your vision for the image, to manipulating the light to express your intent. Most of the example photos will involve water, but the considerations can be applied whenever you want to capture and interpret the motion of everyday objects while your camera remains stationary.