Setting up
Originally uploaded by Jane Dallaway

When Danny was planning the week of Skillswaps during the Brighton Digital Festival he asked me if I would be prepared to do a Photography 101 to go along with the other events he had planned. I decided that I'd give it go, and so last night saw me presenting on "Digital Photography 101". I initially wrote this talk for Barcamp Brighton but didn't have an opportunity to present it.

A pdf of my slides can be downloaded here (warning: it's 32MB in size which is the only reason it isn't on slideshare) and my accompanying notes can be found here.

I felt the presentation went well and I was glad that I'd done a quick around the room to find out experience levels to gauge what level to aim at. I enjoyed the discussion at the end - some of the topics raised were watermarking, digital watermarking, multiple exposures/exposure bracketing and HDR.

We then moved on to considering whether a "Geek Camera Club" or something would be worthwhile, and there certainly seemed to be some people who thought they'd be interested in a monthly meetup. The preferred format seemed to be based around photographic challenges - things like: taking photos using only a fixed aperture, a fixed focal distance, in black and white, etc. Certainly I find that having other people issuing me a challenge makes me think more. If you're interested in a "Geek Camera Club" or similar (based in Brighton probably), then leave me a comment and I'll try and see if I can get something organised.

As is typical for a skillswap, we continued the conversation in the Victory.