Digital Photography Level 1 @ Gulf Photo Plus

As a Christmas gift my thoughtful husband bought me a course of photography classes since I've a fledgling interest in photography and since starting this blog I'd like to take better photos for you.

"Hooray!".... I hear you all rejoice! ;-)

Awesome Graffiti mural outside Gulf Photo Plus gallery  

My problem is I often have a vision in my mind of a picture I want to take, but unfortunately I don't have the technical knowledge to be able create it. We have a pretty OK digital camera a Sony DSLR we got as a wedding present, but due to lack of knowledge we aren't utilising it to it's functional capacity.

We could read the manual I suppose....but in all honestly who reads manuals!!!

GPP Gallery image from their website

Johan also has and interest in photography so enrolled us both on the Level 1 Digital Photography run by Gulf Photo Plus, as we thought it would be a cool thing to do together.

Gulf Photo Plus run lots of courses, workshops, free events, exhibitions and seminars with prominent international photographers.

The classes run from their Dubai Gallery/Studio on Alserkel Avenue in Al Qouz, this is somewhat of an odd location tucked behind Time Square mall, which is somewhat of an an odd mall.

The gallery is in an industrial compound which is quite hard to find, once you do however, you discover it's a small artisan mecca of urban galleries flanked by grafftti murals, who knew! The area itself seems to be trying to develop into and bohemian hub with the addition of the Ripe Organic market and Lime Tree Cafe at the nearby Courtyard.

Grumpy baby a subject for focus & lighting 

Gulf Photo Plus offer an array of courses with options to suit various levels and interests. The digital photography class we took ran over a weekend Friday and Sat, starting from 10am to 3pm.

Our lecturer's Toyna Colson, assisted by Musthafa were knowledgeable and kept a good momentum to the curriculum.

In level one you learn the basic foundations, understanding what all the programmes on our camera do and the fundaments of Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed which are the 3 cornerstones of photography.

Proper equipment care, focus and lighting are other key subjects on the agenda.

Tonya, managed our expectations that we wouldn't come away with portfolio of award winning photographs, what you do is simple experiments to practice fundamental skills.





Before you can get creative and progress to elements of composition you have to master the mathematics of photography, which to a novice is quite a lot to get your head around. Aperture is measure in F-stops, ISO in sensor sensitivity amount and shutter speed in fractions of seconds.

Each factor affects the outcome of the image and the difficult thing is each of the factors when changed directly affects the others, so you have to make a sum of your desired combination and figure out if it will work on the hoof. Not easy!

Learning about White balance

White balance is another key aspect where you determine what kind of colour you get. This is when you have to set the camera for types of light for example artificial, sunshine or clouds, you can also do manual adjustments to get the exact exposure tones required.

Correcting the White Balance!

Depth of field is studied in some detail as is the different ways to capture motion.

Experiments in Depth of Field

I also realised that my inability to take the kinds of photographs I want are mostly due to the limitations of my camera lens as well as my own lack of knowledge.

I had a few 'Eureka!' moments realising that no wonder I couldn't get the shots I wanted if I'm constantly in auto mode.


Plus, going 'back to school' with your husband is quite an interesting experience as we got competitive with one another and bickered about who was doing what right and wrong, it was funny.

Experiments in motion 

You get an home work assignment which you present and group critique the next day, so it's quite an intensive few days but that's good as you come away feeling like you've learned something.

The gallery/studio is a pleasant, practical and inspiring space as they have small exhibitions and you can peruse some of the amazing professional photography for sale. However, it's a bit stuck in the middle of no-where so can be difficult to get to and from if you haven't got a car as taxi's don't always know where it is either.


All in all this was an enjoyable and worthwhile 2 day course to give a structured underpinning of the more technical aspects of digital photography.

 All I need to do now is practice, practice, practice!