Time out....

Not that I'm complaining because we love our social life & time spent with family & friends but we are always so flat out busy doing things with the people we love that we never seem to find time to catch up on things we need to do around the home.  Aside from housework & car cleaning which is easily set aside & around listing our lives on eBay, I have been totally neglecting my course work in favour of visiting family, friends, having weekends away, taking lovely long walks, going for nice meals & drinking in back gardens all in the sunshine & before I even knew it another month had passed when I hadn't even taken a look at my course work, although on the plus side the last month has seen my camera go into overdrive with all the places we have visited, including Portugal, but that's a whole separate blog story once i finally finish editing all 1,100 photos *gasp*

So today we decided to take some time out & play catch up & what a total success.  I have now completed Unit 4 - Mastering shutter speeds & Unit 5 - Cracking composition.

Unit 4 has taught me all about shutter speeds & the length of time they open up to allow light to hit the sensor adjusting how light or dark the photo ends up, whether the subject is frozen in time or moving & whether the background is sharp or blurry.  It was actually a lot to take in & a bit overwhelming all the facts and figures it was throwing at me about aperture & ISO settings but i must have taken it all in because i passed the test at the end & have been given my next assignment.

Unit 5 really caught my attention.  The first unit to teach me not just how to master the camera & the settings itself but advice on how to compose the perfect shot.  Horizontal, vertical, diagonal & forced perspective angles.  This unit has really got me eager to get back outside & capture some more photos with all the new methods I have been taught today.

So on the subject of photo angles & to brighten up this blog post a little, I'm going to leave you with a teaser photo from our holiday to Portugal.  Everybody meet Monte our monkey.