Photography 1: Basic Digital Photography (Online class)
This program is currently unavailable. Click here to view all of our current programs.
Ages 18+
Learn about your Digital SLR (DSLR) camera and how to shoot images in the manual modes
resulting in better photographs. Topics include: Understanding DSLR features and functions;
Understanding Exposure; Understanding Focusing and Depth of Field; Understanding
Composition and Elements of Visual Design.; and learning how to see like a photographer.
There will be shooting homework between sessions. The 6 2-hour sessions will consist of
lectures as well as photo critiques.
Basic Digital Photography I Homework Option (see below to enroll)
The key components to taking great photographs are knowing how to use your camera in manual mode, understanding the principals of composition and the elements of visual design, seeing like
a photographer, and practicing taking photographs. This add-on option to the class is designed
to help you put into practice all of the things that you will learn in class. You will be given
shooting assignments each week (4 assignments: weeks 2 – 5) specific to that week’s class
material. The instructor will then review your work and provide positive and constructive
feedback to help you take your work up another notch. The critiques are provided via video and
can be downloaded for reviewing as many times as you like. The instructor will be available to
answer questions via email. The best way to improve your photography is to learn from photos
that worked well, and from photos that did not work so well.
About Nick DePasquale
Nick DePasquale is a freelance photographer and photography instructor located in
Tyngsborough, Massachusetts. He specializes in travel, fine art, and sports action photography.
Nick is a lifelong photographer, having worked for a weekly newspaper, motorcycle racing
magazine, and as a wedding, event and sports photographer. Over the last 15 years he
has photographed local town events, middle and high school sports, college football, fund-raising
events for non-profit organizations, motorcycle racing, bicycle racing, running road races, rock
‘n roll bands and high school senior portraits. He has traveled to Italy, Barbados, Spain, China,
Sicily, Japan, Germany, Hungary and Austria - photographing along the way. His photographs
have been published in local newspapers, on various websites, and are exhibited several times
each year.
Artist Statement
Much of my photography over the past 50+ years has been focused on capturing “moments-in-time”.
Whether a sporting event, a wedding, or even a landscape, I became good at taking a technically great picture – very much left brain. For the past 10
years, I have been transitioning from “taking pictures” to “making photographs” – works of art, switching from left-brain analytical thinking to right-brain creative thinking. My photographs now utilize the elements of artistic design and composition (light,
shadow, color, shapes, lines, texture, patterns and perspective) to see the world differently. to see the beauty that exists if I slow down and take it all in. My choice of subjects is varied but with the same creativity, preparation, visualization, anticipation, and process for each
photograph, using the creative tools on my artist’s palette to capture an interesting image that will show the world in a different way and hold the viewer's interest just a little bit longer.