Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - FE600: Shoot the Dog!

Course Details

Did you get a new camera and aren’t sure how to take photos of your dog that aren’t one big blur? Do you have a black dog that seems to become a black hole in every photo you take? Are you still shooting in Auto mode on your expensive camera? Do you want to take control of the buttons on your camera? Then you are in the right place! Start learning the skills and tools you need to be more comfortable with digital photography. Learn to see the world differently and get better results. Move beyond “point and click” to “compose and create.”

This course will introduce you to the fundamentals of photography with an emphasis on using available light. This class emphasizes the principles of exposure and starts teaching you how to choose the right camera settings for the type of photo you wish to take, both indoors and out. Initially, you will not be photographing moving objects (i.e. your dog), but gradually we will add the skills that will allow you to photograph a wide range of subjects, both still and in motion.

Shoot the Dog is just the beginning. You will leave this class with the foundation you need to start making better choices when composing your shot. You will also be ready for the rest of the photography classes taught here at FDSA:

Expose the Dog (August 2021)
Compose the Dog (date TBD)
Adjust the Dog (date TBD)

shootthedog1 shootthedog2 shootthedog3

This course requires a Digital SLR (DSLR) or mirrorless camera. If you want to know if your camera will work for the class or have a question about what to buy, please email me at amy@focusedwild.com.

Teaching Approach

You will receive two Photo Lab assignments per week and use Google Photos to share images. There will be lecture material each week, in addition to the photo assignments. However, the greatest value of this class will be in the discussions carried on through the forum. The lecture material will not be new or unique--the basics of photography have been well-covered in multitudes of books and websites. Having a working photographer at your virtual "beck and call" to answer all of your questions is where you will find the most value in this course. If you're wondering about it, it's a good bet someone else is, too, so don't hold back with your questions.

GOLD STUDENTS will complete the Photo Labs and receive feedback on the results.

BRONZE STUDENTS are auditors and can read everything that is written, but not interact with the students or instructor directly.

You need to know how to transfer images from your camera's memory card to your computer and upload them to a website. A tutorial for using Google Photos will be provided with the first lecture material.

[INST]

Syllabus

The foundations of photography are the same whether you're taking photos of your family, a flower, a panoramic landscape, or your favorite four-legged friend. This class will teach you those foundations with an emphasis on taking better pictures of your dog.

This course is "brand agnostic" in terms of the camera you have. The lessons will be on the basics of photography, and will not be written with any particular camera brand in mind. Names of functions may vary between brands, but the fundamentals of proper exposure are independent of those terms. Between the camera manual, Google, and yours truly, we can help you make any necessary translations.

The syllabus is a general guide. The flow of topics may change

Week 1: Aperture and Depth of Field

Week 2: Shutter Speed and Photographing Motion

Week 3: ISO

Week 4: Manual Exposure and How to Choose Your Settings

Week 5: White Balance and Metering

Week 6: Histograms and Final Project!

Prerequisites & Supplies

This course is "brand agnostic," meaning it is not written for a specific camera brand or model. As long as you can manually control the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, you are good to go. If you are not sure whether your camera will work, email me at amy@focusedwild.com.

I have been a Canon user for over 20 years and a Nikon user for about 7. I've had Sony users take this class quite successfully.

Memory card

Lens (or multiple lenses if you have them)

Sample Lecture

I AM SMARTER THAN THE CAMERA, AND SO ARE YOU

Before we get to the “how” I want to spend a few moments on “why”.

I shoot the way I do because I am a control freak. I know that I am smarter than the camera. I know I can make better decisions than the camera about how to expose a scene and how to focus on the subject. Everything I do is done to maximize my control over how that image comes out. If you shoot in Auto Mode all the time, you are surrendering your control to the teeny-tiny brain of the camera and it is not that smart, especially when it comes to dog photography.

When you get stuck, you need to slow down, take a deep breath, and repeat after me:

“I am smarter than the camera.”

The nice thing about a camera is that, unlike a dog, you don’t have to worry about hurting its feelings. Feel free to cuss at it when you need to. However, just like with a dog (or maybe even more so), the mistakes are all on you. If your camera didn’t get the image you wanted, it’s because you weren’t giving it enough information to get that image. Unlike a dog, the camera’s reactions are 100% consistent. It is a machine and it CANNOT operate inconsistently, even if it appears that way to you. The way a camera behaves is entirely predictable. You have to learn your camera’s capabilities as well as its limitations. If a shot doesn’t work, don’t think, “If only I had a better camera/lens/dog, this photo would have been better.” Instead, look at the image and ask, “What could I have done differently? What more did I need to tell the camera to make this shot work?”

Photography is nothing if not complex, requiring multitasking on many levels. You have your subject to manage, light to analyze, plus the technical bits of choosing the right camera settings to capture the scene as you see it. And if your subject is something that moves, like a dog or a bird, you have to be ready for anything! Mastery of these things takes hours of practice until they become a function of muscle memory, rather than conscious thought. But I’m here to tell you that the hours pay off.

I used to be exactly where each of you are. I used to fumble with the dials and buttons on the camera, not sure which setting I needed to tweak and which ones to leave alone. But over time, these things have become second nature. I KNOW how my cameras will react in different situations. I know when the light is going to be a problem (almost always!). I KNOW when the camera is going to have trouble focusing on the right thing or focusing fast enough. And knowing how to predict these things means I can think it through and find ways to minimize the problems. Turn up the ISO in one situation, change the thing I’m focusing on in another, practice focusing quickly on one subject and then the other before there’s even a dog in the ring in a third.

Signing up for this class means you are ready to be a photography control freak too. AWESOME!

SETTING EXPECTATIONS

(or NOT EVERY PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS)

No, this is not my expectations for you. This is about setting realistic expectations for yourself.

First of all, not every photograph is a keeper shot, let alone perfect. EVER! I still shoot my fair share of clunkers, but you’ll never see them. Well, for this class you'll see a few for illustration purposes, but normally, those images don’t get seen by anyone other than me.

Let me show you what I mean. This is a picture of a Green Heron. At least, that’s what it’s supposed to be. This is the best picture I got of it that day, and it flew by me at least 3 times. It happens, even to the professionals.

The beauty of digital is that we can get that instant feedback to see if we got the shot. If not, shoot it again. Shoot LOTS and learn how to edit. Do not think that becoming a better photographer requires every shot to turn out perfectly.

[Side note: I will use the word “edit” throughout this course to mean the simple task of deciding which image to keep and which ones to delete. I do not mean using Photoshop or other photo editors to enhance or change the image itself. For that, I will use the phrase “post-processing.” More on that in future lessons.]

For some perspective, here are my personal expectations for my three most common shooting situations.

1. When I am photographing an agility trial as the official photographer, I will shoot 5000-7000 photos in a day at a national-level event and keep (hopefully) ONE-THIRD to ONE-HALF of them. Usually it’s closer to a third. For a local trial, I’ll shoot on the order of 3K images and keep about half.

2. When I am out photographing birds, I will shoot 500-2000 pictures, depending on what I find. I am happy if I get 10-15 keepers. Yes, only 10-15!

3. When I am taking snapshots of family events or other casual opportunities, I use my iPhone. And I don't feel any guilt about it! My family sometimes wonders if I really am a professional photographer since they never see my “big camera.” These photos are for documentation, not art.

It also helps to disconnect emotionally from your photos by a little bit. Yes, you should love your work, but you have to develop a critical eye. If you are only keeping an image because of an emotional reaction to it and it doesn’t have the technical "chops" to back up that emotion, it is not a strong image. Likewise, if the image is tack sharp and perfectly exposed, but has no emotional component, it is also not a strong image.

Photography is a communication art and if your viewers get distracted by a photo that is out of focus (even just a little bit) or poorly composed, or can’t figure out what “story” you’re telling, they will not be able to hear the real message you are trying to convey. Editing, sometimes brutally and ruthlessly, will make your body of work much stronger.

Finally, slow down and think. I cannot emphasize this enough. Do not slam the camera up to your face and push the button willy-nilly and expect to get a good photo, let alone a great one. You don’t have the muscle memory yet to react to quickly changing circumstances. If you are frustrated taking photos of moving subjects, slow down and take photos of still objects. Learn your fundamentals on things that don’t move and master the basics. Then apply what you know to something that doesn’t stay in one place. Don’t obsess about the shots you didn’t get. Celebrate the shots you DID get!

We will spend a good portion of this class shooting things that aren’t your dog. You may even begin to wonder why it’s called Shoot the Dog! The biggest reason for this is that your dog is very unpredictable. Even a highly trained dog has moments of unpredictability. Most of you are not ready for unpredictability yet. You will practice on things that don’t move. When you get to the point of shooting things in motion, practice on things that are more consistent in their motion. Photographing dogs at play is hit-and-miss AT BEST. You don’t need that kind of frustration while you are learning so many other things about your camera.

There will be optional assignments most weeks that involve photographing a real dog. They will be related to the main assignment, but will have a higher degree of difficulty, simply because there's a new variable to deal with.

Once you feel comfortable with the basics, you will be able to apply them to taking pictures of your dog. There’s nothing particularly unique about dog photography, to be honest. It’s just applying good fundamental photography skills to a specific subject. We will cover those fundamentals in this class and begin the process of applying them to dogs by week 4 or so. However, it’s not until Level 2 that we’ll really start working on some of the specific challenges that may arise as you hone your skills at dog photography.

In her book Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, writer Anne Lamott tells a story about her brother who was trying to write a report on birds for school. The report was due the next day, even though he’d had three months to work on it. As he sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by piles of paper and stacks of books on birds, he looked around almost in tears, not knowing even where to start. “Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

We’re going to take it “bird by bird” in this class. We’ll learn the pieces and then start putting them together in different ways.

(I highly recommend the book. Anne Lamott is a brilliant writer, very funny and incredibly insightful.)

Lisa, a student from the June 2015 class session, wrote this:

It was really helpful to remind us that we are in charge of the image, not the camera. With all the tech advancements in cameras, it is way easy to think "well, I have this great camera, so I will let it take the pics for me" I.e. Auto. And then wonder why they still don't inspire the photographer.

I also am relieved to know that taking lots and lots of pics is not only ok, but probably essential to capture the best shots. It is good to know that professional photographers take bad pics too. I have a new rule now. It is ok to take a bad pic, but I don't have to share it. (Unless of course it is for a class or illustrative purposes.) So, my Facebook pics will have to start improving-at least for my "good" camera pics.

Testimonials

A sampling of what prior students have said about this course...

When I started this class my camera was gathering dust. I would try to shoot some on auto. When photos of my cute animals never came out the way I wanted I would give up for a while in discouragement. I had read the basics of shutter speed, aperture and ISO before and understood them as concepts. But when it came time to shoot I couldn’t seem to remember everything, would shoot in auto, be unhappy with the results and give up, thinking I just couldn’t take good photos. The beginning basic exercises in this class actually got me comfortable with using my camera in manual. I loved the way the explanations really made sense and were memorable enough to stick in my head some. Then the exercises got me out right after the lecture practicing and learning about what I had just read. This further imbedded the basics in my memory. Throughout the class I gradually got better and quicker at adjusting the manual settings and better at knowing what I wanted to change and then adjusting in order to get that. Then we started shooting our dogs and poof it all came together and I could many times get the picture that I intended through manipulating the settings. Well, I was so ecstatic that from this point I just couldn’t stop shooting! I became addicted! The end result is I now better know how to adjust to get the picture I want. I am hooked and happy and want to practice, practice, practice and learn, learn, learn! I am so happy at how far my comfort level with manual shooting has come in this class. Thank you! Lisa H.

Thank you for offering this class. It's been an absolute treat to learn to take photos from a pro in the dog sport photography world. Amy is awesome.

Did you spend a lot of money on a fancy camera, but haven't used any other setting than "Auto"? Are you dissatisfied with your pictures because they are out of focus? Frustrated because you can't see the features in your black dog? Or because your little white dog looks gray? If you are struggling with any of these things, this class is for you. When I opened the box to my camera, I knew it had the technological capability to take stunning pictures. But I was relying on the itty-bitty "brain" in my camera instead of the gray-matter between my ears! Throughout this course, Amy has challenged me to really think about and consider how I take pictures. She provided me with the tools to understand not only the camera settings, but how these settings interact with each other to create stunning art. The course content has been written in a multi-media format which can accommodate different learning styles. She takes challenging concepts and breaks them down into smaller, easy-to-understand topics. I still have a lot to learn about photography, but my participation in this class has set me up for success! Kristine D

Thanks, Amy! I finally understand what all those buttons and knobs mean on my camera.

I was only able to afford and have time for the bronze level of this class but I learned so much from just reading the lectures and forum that it's unbelievable. Amy made sure her students were "getting" it. Hopefully I can go gold next time it'seems offered.

Again, really, really loved this class. I learned more in this class than I learned in the photojournalism class I took in college and in all the photography books I've read. I am so glad to have you on the FDSA team! Really looking forward to taking more classes with you.

I guess the most important thing I learned in this course is how much I didn't know. I knew that it would be a learning experience, and it was and continues to be, but right away in the first Photo Lab 1, I got my money's worth! So much so, that I upgraded my camera just to see how much better my photos of my dog could be. Amy was very patient with me while I learned what all the buttons mean. I am very pleased that during this course I took what for me is that "photo of a lifetime" of my dog and it would never have happened if I hadn't taken this course! Connie G.

If you want to learn how to utilize the manual functions of your DSLR camera & not just use it as a point & shoot, then Shoot the Dog! is for you. You'll be amazed at the things you'll learn how to do. Laurie I.

Registration

There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please subscribe to our mailing list for notifications.

Registration opens at 10:30am Pacific Time.

FE600 Subscriptions

	Gold	Bronze
Tuition	$ 260.00	$ 65.00
Enrollment Limits	12	Unlimited
Access all course lectures and materials	✔	✔
Access to discussion and homework forums	✔	✔
Read all posted questions and answers	✔	✔
Watch all posted videos	✔	✔
Post general questions to Discussion forum	✔	✖
Submit written assignments	✔	✖
Post dog specific questions	✔	✖
Post videos	✔	✖
Receive instructor feedback on	Questions All videos	✖

Find more details, refund policies and answers to common questions in the Help center.