I thought about  how best to structure them and came up with the following:

Total Beginner

This is a 1 day (10am to 4pm), run on a weekend, practical course for groups who haven’t used any features on their camera other than automatic and just want to learn the basics. The course will be outdoors, involves group theory sessions along with as much one to one assistance as I can get in. Bring your own lunch and refreshments (we’ll be in easy reach of shops or a pub). A PDF of all topics covered will be provided via email after the course so there’s no need to take notes.

Group size: up to 10 people

Suitable for any type of camera.

Price will be around the £45 mark for the day.

I Know A Bit

This is the next stage from the total beginner course for people that understand some of the fundamentals, or have been on the total beginner course. It’s also a 1 day course (10am to 4pm) run on a weekend. We’ll cover more advanced subjects but a basic level of knowledge will be assumed, again it will be largely practical. It will also require slightly more advanced equipment, for instance cameras that allow you to use manual settings for aperture and shutter speed. Again, bring your own lunch and refreshments. A PDF of all topics covered will be provided via email after the course so there’s no need to take notes.

Group size: up to 10 people

Suitable for advanced compact cameras, bridge cameras and DSLRs.

Price will be around the £90 mark for the day.

One to One

This is for people who want to learn specific areas in photography and have the camera gear to do so. So you might want to concentrate on one area like sports or macro or just have a refresher course by yourself. I can tailor the session to you and it can be for as long or short as you want. I will contact you beforehand to get an idea of what you want to learn and come up with a plan for what will be covered. These would have to be run at weekends.

Group size: 1

Suitable for any type of camera

Price will be around the £20 per hour. How many hours you want is up to you.

So they are the courses that I’m thinking of running, and I emphasise THINKING of running, they are not available to book yet. Obviously with them being outdoors, they are dependant on the weather, so they might need to be rescheduled if the weather is really bad on the day.

So, let me know if those sort of course will be of interest to you. If I get enough interest, I will get some dates organised.

I am running one more Photography Basics Course this year on the 5th of December. You can find all the details here and book online too.

I hope the weather will be kind to us, and I’m looking forwards to running it.

It will be a great day and you’ll come away able to control your images and think about how to get the results you are aiming for, and all for just £35.

You can find out more and book the course here: http://www.photography-basics.com/products-page/1-day-photography-courses/1-day-photography-basics-course-17102010/

This means I haven’t had much luck in finding a base to run the courses from. I am, however, looking into setting up a longer term course which would run over several weeks as an evening course. I have found a possible location but things are moving slowly so can’t really tell you anything more. I do hope it will work out though.

The one day courses are still something I would like to run though so I’ll keep looking for a room to hire and try and get something set up soon.

Until then, I have a few more articles planned so hopefully that will give you some help and inspiration to get your camera out and take more pictures.

I am planning more courses for 2010 but they are not going to start until spring as I will be moving house early next year and will need to find a new location to run the courses. Along with the standard basics course, as I have lots of requests for them, I will be setting up an intermediate course to cover things in a bit more detail and maybe look at certain areas of photography a bit more specifically. I am also looking once again into running an Adobe Photoshop course. This was always my original plan as Photoshop goes hand in hand with digital photography. This does largely depend on what facilities I can find and what they will charge me, but hopefully I can get something arranged.

Along with my courses, I plan to organise a few more photography walks throughout the year. I enjoy the photo walks a lot as it actually gives me a chance to take some pictures which I haven’t had a lot of time to do lately. There are lots of locations that are easy to get to around the North West, so I’ll be sorting more of them out.

I will be doing some product reviews too. The difficulty in doing a product review is that you need the product to use and test. This can be expensive, but as I have collected a few new bits of equipment over the last few months and will no doubt be collecting some more, I’ll try and review the bits that I think will be of use to other photographers. If companies would like to donate anything for me to test and review, then I’d be more than happy to do so.

I am hoping 2010 is a bigger photography year for me than it was this year, I had high hopes at the beginning of the year, but life just got in the way. With a new location and some new motivation I reckon 2010 will be a lot more photographic.

I have also had several email enquiries come through, but have been unable to reply due to problems with the email address that has been entered, so if you have emailed me in the last few days asking about places left on the course, then yes, there are places left so please book online and I will confirm your booking via email.

The dates are Sunday 29th November 2009 and Sunday 6th December 2009. The day costs £35 per person and will include a light buffet lunch.

All the details can be found here.

There are 15 places on each course, but I have had a fair few inquiries before I was able to confirm the dates so I am hoping the places get booked up. If anyone has any questions about the course, then just let me know.

So I am sorry I couldn’t get one organised.

But, September will give me the chance to run a course. Sunday September 20th will be the next course. There will be 15 places available, a buffet lunch and hopefully dry weather but who knows what the weather will do for the rest of the year? Click here for more info on the course.

I am also going to plan a trip to Chester Zoo on Saturday September 19th. Now for this I need to get atleast 15 people in order to get a discounted entry fee, so please let me know if you are interested so I can work out the numbers. It will only cost the entry fee, which at most will be about £15 but I hope to get it down to about £12 if the group is big enough.

If you have any questions about either of these activities, just let me know, but please be aware that from 22nd August to September 12th I will not be able to respond as I will be out taking photos in the Canadian Wilderness, far away from any internet connection or mobile signal…. BLISS!!

Also don’t forget the photo walk on July 18th, the more people come along the better.

There are, however, a couple of places left on the 28th June if anyone is interested.

I will be running another course in July, and one in early August, but I’ve still got to confirm the definite dates.