About.com Rating

The Photo School Composition Workshop is a three hour photography workshop on a Saturday afternoon. The course is aimed at beginners who want to learn the basic rules of photo composition.

Pros

• Small group (max. 10)
• Excellent value for money
• Weekend workshop - only 3 hours
• Digitial SLR and compact photographers welcome

Cons

• Critique takes time...

Why Did I Choose This Course?

I wanted to do a photography course and had found lots at varying prices.

Most need you to be free for a series of weeks, or a whole weekend, but as this Composition Workshop is just a few hours on a Saturday afternoon it's perfect for locals and visitors to London.

The group met at a City of London pub and spent the first hour discovering 'what is composition?' We looked at the use of lines and curves with plenty of example photos, and also found out about the 'rule of thirds'.

Armed with this knowledge, for the second hour we were let loose around the City of London to take photos using our new insight.

Do I Need A Fancy Camera?

About half the group had a DSLR and half had a compact camera so the type of camera you have is not important for this course. We tried to see the world around us differently and had to choose four photos to share with the group. The City of London at the weekend is always an excellent photography location due to it's contrasting architecture and lack of people (the City is pretty much closed at the weekend).

Critique

The final hour is critique time and I was acutely aware I still take far too many photos, but I was able to choose just four photos (which you can see on this page or to view them larger see Photo School Composition Workshop Photos).
Critique time did drag a bit but it is an important part of the course and the feedback was helpful including cropping tips and angle suggestions, as well as how to how to avoid cluttering an image.

What Did Everyone Think?

The other 'photographers' all seemed to enjoy their afternoon too and I heard comments such as, "I wouldn't have thought of that before" and "I'd never tried that angle" which proved we all left enlightened and will, hopefully, all have improved our photography in one afternoon. There was a useful handout for me to refer to if I think I've forgotten any of the good stuff.
Tips I took away from the Composition Workshop were to try and have lines coming from the corner of the shot to draw the viewers eye inwards and to use the rule of thirds, and then to know all rules can be broken.

I really enjoyed the course and hope to book another course soon.

Photo School Website

www.photoschool.org.uk