What You will Learn
In this workshop, I'll be teaching you the fundamentals of photography from my perspective and a little more. I’ll share with you my thoughts on equipment and gear, teach you how to master exposure and camera settings, explore framing and composition, how to get natural light to work for you instead of against you, how to do basic editing on Lightroom, and how to work with color. There will be lessons on how to shoot portraits, street photography and daily life, and we'll find inspiration from looking at other photographers' work and work towards finding your identity as a photographer.
We'll work through assignments together and talk about the intangible things that can help us become better photographers, which includes learning how to fall in love with this world and how to continue creating despite the constant onslaught of fear and self-doubt.
By the end of the workshop, you will gain a firm grasp of basic technical skills - which will form a solid foundation for your future practice - and learn how to see the world like a photographer and how to begin using photography to express your personal truth.
JOIN A Community of Passionate Photographers
The workshop doesn’t end at the workshop! Anyone who joins the workshop will also be invited to join our Discord community. There you can continue to gain support from fellow workshop attendees, find like-minded friends, ask questions about photography, share your work, and be part of our future events.
Workshop Details
Level: Beginner
Duration: 4 sessions / once a week / 120 minutes per session
Location: Singapore (in our studio Apartmentofu)
Dates: 11, 18, 25 Feb + 11 March 2023
Time: 2.30pm - 4.30pm
Class size: Not more than 10pax
Price: SGD$800
(Open for registration on 15 Jan 2023, 10pm SGT. Join the waitlist to get notified when registration opens.)
“I go out to take a walk, I see something. I take a picture. I have avoided profound explanations of what I do.”
Tell the truest story you know
I think Ernest Hemingway was the one who said, “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." The same can be said about photography, “All you have to do is take one true photograph. Take the truest photograph that you know."
So that can mean taking a photo of something so mundane in your life that you wouldn’t normally care to think about. This alone can break your inertia and your belief that you have no story to tell. But your story, no matter how boring, how ordinary, is not boring or ordinary to others if it is true, since no one on this earth apart from you has lived your life.
In this workshop, you will learn to tell the truest story you know, or at least, begin your photography journey from there.
Workshop Syllabus
Week 1
What is photography, indeed?
Exploring the paradox of “the right camera”
Choosing your tools of choice: Navigating cameras and lenses
Mastering exposure and camera settings
Demystifying once and for all the holy trinity of exposure: Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO
Learning the magical rule-of-thumb exposure sequence
Shooting exercise
Finding inspiration from other photographers’ work
Creative philosophy: Who am I as a photographer?
Week 1 assignment
Week 2
Assignment discussion/presentation
Framing and composition rules
Rules are made to be broken ;p
How to use Lightroom to edit your images: Walkthrough of Lightroom features, hands-on editing of images
How to use and create presets
Shooting exercise
Creative Philosophy: Using photography to express your inner truth
Week 2 assignment
Week 3
Assignment discussion/presentation
The art of portrait photography: Creative, technical, human
How the choice of lens affects your portrait photography
Working with and mastering natural light: Learning to shoot great photos in every lighting condition
Creative Philosophy: Finding your unique path as a creative
Shooting exercise
Week 3 assignment
Week 4
Assignment discussion/presentation
Working with and mastering natural light 2
The unique challenges of street photography
The dark arts of photographing strangers
The ethics of street photography
Creative Philosophy: Overcoming fear, self-doubt and imposter’s syndrome
Where do you go from here?
*Syllabus is subject to minor changes, but this will give you a good general idea of what we will be doing during the workshop.
About Me
Hi, my name is Rebecca. I was born in 1986 in Singapore, where I currently live and work. I have been a photographer for the last ten years of my life, working as an advertising and commercial photographer.
Influenced by music, literature and film, I have always worked to inject emotion, story-telling and a sense of the cinematic into the images I create for a diverse range of commercial, advertising and editorial clients across multiple industries and cities, including The New York Times, Singapore Tourism Board, Monocle, The Economist, Pictet Group, UOB, Qantas Airways and more.
In my personal photography, my instinct is to tell honest stories about where I am, who I am, what I am feeling. I want my photographs to connect to the deeper parts of me that usually don’t get to see the light of day.
I first fell in love with photography when I was 18 or 19, browsing Flickr. Of all the images on the website, I found myself drawn to the ones that were grainy, moody, mysterious, cinematic and sad. I’d stare at them and wonder how these images came about, and I wondered about the photographers too, who seemed to live such deep, memorable, colorful lives.
I yearned to be like these photographers. And I yearned, even more, to be somewhere else. In fact all of my late teenage years were about wanting to be transplanted to a better reality. I idolised writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and Paul Theroux and Bruce Chatwin, who all went to faraway places and lived big, adventurous lives. I wanted to go to England or America or India and join up with young people who were smarter and cooler than me, who could teach me how to smoke cigarettes and drink beer and who’d bring me along on their wild and crazy road trips into the unknown.
But while I used to think of my camera as a passport, a means of getting to places I don’t belong, today I think of my camera as a most ordinary but profound tool, which I use to document and appreciate life as I see it, life as I live it. Photography is and will always be one of the greatest blessings of my life.
Student Testimonials
“Photography 101 with Rebecca was in a word: inspiring. She created what I felt was truly a genuine safe space for amateur/beginner photographers to explore photography as an art form.
My favourite moments were all the times she emphasised that photos we take have to be meaningful and beautiful to us as individuals. The lessons were packed with techniques and tools that ranged from basic ISO/shutter speed/f-stop/focus settings (which have helped me save SO much time while photographing on the go), to the many many techniques for composing photos, to the many different types of photography, down to the details of Lightroom and camera settings. These techniques have really helped to improve my photography - my photos are better exposed, focused, taken faster, and I am exploring more ways to compose my images. I’m also more confident as a(n amateur) photographer! :)
Overall, i’d definitely recommend Rebecca’s photography class to my friends who are interested in photography :)”
- Diyanah
“I am truly thankful for this workshop in that I finally demystified the loaded concepts (to me, at least) of ISO, shutter speed, and aperture! To those overwhelmed by the seas of info online, you are really not alone, and Rebecca’s well-paced and engaging curriculum will indeed guide and support you as you learn and also take time to apply it during class.
I knew nothing when I started, and that was no issue at all because Rebecca was patient and approachable throughout, even offering help and guidance beyond class time. I’ve now learnt the basics, and can better understand the free information online, but if Rebecca launched a class for the next level now, I would still sign up for it in a heartbeat, and I think that’s saying a lot.
I bring my camera with me most places now, to capture the stories that I want to tell or that catch me unaware, and I think this is the most valuable part of the workshop - that you are thereafter empowered with a tool of storytelling, and you’ll now be able to look at the world through a brand new lens (literally, and it may be few new lenses too) - and that is priceless.”
- Maisie
“Rebecca is amazing at what she does and her professionalism, enthusiasm and sincerity grows on you. I enjoyed the workshop through and through and am very grateful to have attended it, I am now more aware of my camera and *hands in the air*, photography is everything.”
- Dora
“Photography 101 was a really insightful workshop. Being a non-photographer with zero knowledge, I have certainly amassed a ton of information from Rebecca and the friends I’ve made on this journey. From learning about shutter speed, aperture and ISO, to understanding the different composition as to what makes photography great, Rebecca is very patient, humble, and clear in her delivery. My favourite part was especially about learning the various camera settings and working with light forms to deliver a nice bokeh and contrast. I have learnt to appreciate photography a whole lot more and I hope more friends will join us on this journey too!”
- Vanessa
FAQ
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Yes, you will need to bring your own camera. Shooting with a DSLR, mirrorless or interchangeable-lens camera will help you to get the most of the workshop. If you have trouble with this, drop us an email before the workshop and we can try to fix you up with something.
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This workshop is geared towards those who are interested in shooting on manual mode on their cameras. You can definitely adjust your exposure settings manually on your phone cameras nowadays using special apps, but the experience will feel limiting.
For the best learning experience, we highly recommend that you come to the workshop with a camera with manual settings (like a DSLR or a mirrorless camera), because then we can do so much more with it. You can use different lenses, capture movement better, etc. The bigger files from the camera will also give you more latitude to play with when you edit the images.
If you need help with this and have no idea what camera to get or from where, drop us an email before the workshop and we will try our best to sort you out!
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You can if you want to! But a digital camera that allows for manual settings is the most ideal and will help you make the most out of the workshop with it.
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This workshop is tailored for absolute beginners. So don’t worry, come as you are!
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This workshop will be great for you if you want to gain a solid foundation in terms of basic technical skills. Beyond that, you will also find useful our discussions about topics beyond the technical aspects of photography, such as how to find your own identity as a photography, how to express your inner truth, how to appreciate good photography, and so on. This will form another layer of your photography education and will definitely benefit your future practice.
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I’d recommend Adobe Lightroom if you’d like to get a photo editing software (you will eventually need it if you’re serious about photography), but if you don’t want to pay for Lightroom, you can also use free open-source software such as Darktable. The same editing principles apply across different software.
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Yes, there will be assignments. Assignments will help to solidify the theory and concepts you learn in the workshop. After all, photography is something that has to be done in the real world and not in the classroom or in your head.
“Look how mysterious this world is. Isn’t that the message of every one of these photographs...?”
