One camera, two hours and great results – with expert help
Rob Popsys from Willcando
The use of visual imagery and pictures is a key component of my work as a coach, as it is for my business – for blogging, workshops, promotion and development. So, I was off to fine tune my appreciation, skills and competence with photography in order to further my business prospects.
I was however not optimistic. It was cold and dreary, and I only had a compact camera – not one of the trendy all singing and dancing DSLR’s that are all the rage nowadays. Just how much of a difference would it make?
I need not have worried.
I was spending a couple of hours quality time with Eifion Williams from Welshot, the specialists in helping people – amateur and budding professional snappers alike – get the very best from their camera and equipment.
As a true professional, Eifion had done his homework by researching my camera model beforehand in order to help prepare my expectations, to marry my equipment with my photographic needs, and to pick out the features and capabilities that would most impact on my photographic performance. He had also picked an ideal location, a Slate Quarry Museum in the heart of Snowdonia, where visual opportunities and challenges abound; a place where even the dullest and wettest day provides and evokes options to impress.
It started with a coffee and a discussion about my camera (and all its seeming wizardry), with its buttons, levers, dials, and a multitude of confusing screen terms, icons, messages and options – of which I knew little. Eifion encouraged me to play around in order to find my way around the camera; and while snapping the coffee shop condiments and chairs at will, I was surprised to discover an astonishing array of options and results from only a few minor, and normally overlooked and misunderstood camera settings – like lighting colour, background illumination, zoom or wide angle, use of flash etc. I was starting to realise what good instruction was worth, and what creative photographic possibilities existed because of it.
With new found optimism we ventured into the museum and came across an authentically dark scene. With systematic steps, instruction, explanation, tweaks and care – and a tripod he had wisely brought along – Eifion took me through the options for how to reproduce the scene with very pleasing results. And on we went, looking, snapping, learning and discovering.
My compact camera was not the cheapest, and certainly not expensive, yet with Eifions help, I now appreciate its value with capability and possibility in mind – and not just pixels. I am better placed to get the best (or at least more) out of it, and though there is much to practice, I am looking forward to generating more structured, planned, useful and impressive results.
It’s amazing what you can do when you know how – and when someone takes the time to guide you – expertly. I would recommend anyone take the opportunity to get to know and use the true capability of their camera – for both personal and business benefits – in the capable hands of Eifion Williams, and the Welshot team. If you use images for business, it could be worth more than you ‘image…ine’.
