Photography Workshop - Fall in Missouri

Years ago I went to a photography workshop sponsored by the University of Missouri's Fine Arts Department. I decided that it was time to go on another workshop...almost everything has changed due to digital cameras replacing print film among most photographers. A two-day class was scheduled at the Shaw Nature Center and I signed up. Scott Avetta was the teacher and there were about a dozen participants.

I ended up taking over 300 pictures until my battery finally gave out. Most of the participants had much more advanced equipment than I did but I'm happy with my images and probably would not have done much better with another $1,000 of equipment. I will probably throw away 200 or more of the pictures as I go through and select the best ones.

We met at 7 AM each day and headed out to shoot our pictures for about two hours while the light was still good. Scott Avetta is an established nature photographer in St. Louis and he gave us some great advice and pre-scouted the areas where we would shoot. The light at sun rise is the best for this type of photography and the winds are usually calm.




Shaw Nature Center has a great deal of diversity in areas for shooting photos. We went to a wetlands the first day and a prairie the second day and ended up at a wildflower garden.







We did a lot of macro photography.








This was taken near the end of the second day when the sun was getting up pretty high....about 8:30

This was a fairly early picture on the first day. Normally we shot away from the sun or at 90-degrees.





This little guy was photographed several times and he never moved.  Probably too cold and wet.








We had a lot of rain in the Spring and early Summer and our Fall has been exceptionally pretty.

I didn't know some of the features on my camera and mistakenly set it for tungsten light during part of the second day which gave many of my pictures a blueish cast. Learning about the camera was very helpful on this trip.

 Lots of wildflowers and many shades of color. Asters were ranging from pink to lilac to blue.

Sumac and Virginia Creeper vines were deep red.

 Water droplets were on everything.

 White flowers were often a distraction and usually avoided in a picture but they are nice on their own.

Prairie grasses were bent over with the weight of the dew.

Virginia Creeper on an old Cedar tree near the Bascom house.

Seed pods of some sort. The difficult part of this type of photography is minimizing the background so it isn't a distraction. This was too crowded.

Wild oats in the wildflower garden. Cluttered background.

Scott was able to spend some time with each participant.




I was in such a bad mood the last few weeks and this two-day workshop really helped me to get in a better mood.