Point-and-Shoot Nature Photography Class with John "Verm" Sherman

John “Verm” Sherman’s photography classes at the 2014 Asilomar Family Nature Summit were completely enlightening and disheartening all at the same time. I took 3 classes with Verm over the course of a week:

Point-and-Shoot at Asilomar
Photo DSLR Basics (What’s a Histogram/Do I Care?)
Photo Critique: Your Landscapes Suck

He kept things simple and focused on basic composition for our point-and-shoot class. We learned to think about WHAT we were shooting, not to center, the Rule of Thirds, and placements that evoke different emotions and sense of movement. We learned about perspective and storytelling.

That was the enlightening part!

Now, the disheartening part is that I feel like I’ll never get the shots I want without spending tons $$$$ in equipment, obsessive time in the field to capture nature in action, or without using a photo editing program like Lightroom. And, oh man, did I get bashed about Instagram at the critique session! (But I still love it as a conversation starter and driver of traffic to my website, even though my photos are overprocessed and noisy! I’m going to use it as a practice ground for composition.)

More about this soon, but I’ve been doing some research sparked by a genealogical discovery made by my mom. It turns out that my great grandmother’s uncle is Mode Wineman who was a “noted artist of lens” and naturalist who created camera studies of parks including Yosemite and Yellowstone — think predecessor of Ansel Adams. It’s in my blood!

Sea the star?

Beach bloom

I see you!

Lizard Tail wildflowers and lichen

Shoreline exploration

Sea lion float

I took all these photographs on my Family Nature Summits trip to the Monterey Peninsula — after my classes with Verm. Other than cropping the first photo of the golden hills of California these last photos of the sea lions and pelican – I didn’t make ANY edits to these photos (obviously!). I just practiced composition as Verm taught it.