I am again wiped out tonight but have had a wonderful day learning ‘stuff’ about photography.

I’ve now come to the end of my two-day course on ‘bringing the garden inside’ and do you know what? I don’t reckon I’ve taken a single ‘garden’ shot inside on the two days.

We did spend an hour or so in the vegetable garden this morning, photographing veggies (which is like putting a pig in muck for me) but I didn’t want to use any of those shots because I wanted my shot to be one of my studio efforts for tonight.

There was a lot to take in and a lot to do – much of which I must confess to having executed poorly in my practice sessions today but that doesn’t mean I’ve been deterred – far from it! I’ve found that I need to work on compositions more and that’s where I ‘failed’ today – oh and I also failed because too many of my shots were underexposed – I still need to work on getting my lighting right and have not yet got there.

The best-exposed shots on the whole somehow didn’t work and my compositions were jumbly if the truth be told.

Although I really liked my shots of this spice dish, both with spices and with pulses, I chose this one because it was quite cropped in and I really didn’t like my compositions of what was ‘outside’ the dish. (A mix of peppers, chillis and garlic which just looked ‘plonked’ there and not as though they were contributing anything. That’s why I’ve gone for a square composition today so I can crop out all the stuff I didn’t like!

I suppose that’s the beauty of photoshop…..

Anyway, I need to compute what I’ve learned, do some serious practice and get my head around how to make something look casually spilled around the place but as though it was meant to be there!

I came home with my pulse racing and my head full of things I’ve learned and I think the time and money invested in the two days will pay off as soon as I’ve lodged the important stuff in my head.

Thanks David and Annie for your enthusiasm and enthusiastic support of my efforts. I will not forget your kindness.

Photographically speaking my last year's shot was not at my prime.....but the text was 'quite good'!