Me Ra Koh Photography Workshop

I did something super cool this weekend. I attended a beginning photography workshop for women put on by Me Ra Koh, who is a total photgraphy celebrity and happens to live in Tacoma. She does these workshops all over the country and I’ve been waiting and waiting for her to do one locally.

You know that I love photography and that I have a good camera and whatnot, but honestly if I ever take a good picture, it’s an accident. Before this weekend, I had no idea WHY a picture would be good, WHY the background looked all nice and fuzzy sometimes, or whatever. But now! NOW I understand ISO and aperture and shutter speed and metering! I understand what makes a picture good! I know what I need to do to take professional quality pictures! (That would be practice, and buy some expensive lenses.) I AM NOT AFRAID OF MY CAMERA ANYMORE!!

Not only that, I got to meet and hang out with a great group of cool women who I think, the local ones anyway, might actually turn into friends. And of course I got to meet and hang out with the lovely and talented Me Ra Koh, who previously I have only blogstalked and secretly stared at at the Y. Now I can I say hello!

The first day, we learned about our cameras and then a group of moms and babies came and we got to practice on them in various lighting conditions throughout the lovely B&B where the workshop was held. It was such a great exercise. I went from super frustrated to elated and back again. I learned that my current lenses won’t let me do what I want, that it’s the lenses, not me. How cool is that? There’s something so empowering about understanding the problem.

And look what I did! Doesn’t this look like a REAL photographer took it?

I’m so excited to have my own little subject to torment!