How in control of your focus are you? Does your camera control you or you it? It is good for us all to revisit some basics, and for those who are just relying on the camera, to spend some time digging deeper into it.

This weeks exercise is about exploring focusing, controlling it, and using it to your advantage.

In this weeks exercise we will try photographing the same object from different vantage points. Eye to eye, looking down on and looking up. We can see if this indeed does change our reading of the photograph.

In this weeks exercise we go back to our composition course and revisit pattern. We have developed the ability to sort for difference and similarity.

In this weeks exercise we concentrate on the edges of the frame. Putting effort into them at the time of capture saves us lots of work latter.

In this weeks exercise we are looking at how photographs have conversations with each other when they are presented together.

In this weeks exercise Len asks you to contemplate a photographic print before you process it for a few days to make a list of what you will do to it. See if having an extended relationship with your print changes how you try to resolve it fully in post processing.

This week we will explore the center of focus with the actual area of the photograph that is in focus.

In this weeks exercise we explore and play with compositional balance. Post your photographs of the exercise in our forum and we will discuss the images posted in our online discussion next Friday.

In this weeks exercise we are going to explore how the length of exposure effects the emotional reading of an image. Hopefully better late than never, my apologies for not getting this out on Friday. We will discuss this next Friday in our online class.

In this weeks exercise we try to associate to different objects and bring them together as one. It follows on from our study of the Gestalt Principle of Symmetry.

Closure is the Gestalt Design Principle that states that we complete incomplete shapes in our minds. This is an important skill to learn to use in your photography. In this weeks exercise we try and complete shapes that extend outside of the image area, and bring the viewers eye back into the image.

In this weeks exercise we explore the Gestalt Principle of Continuation. This is where we use design elements to join together lines that take the viewers eye through the image.

Colours have an emotional effect on each of us. Some of these emotions are inherent in humans while others are shaped culturally and through experience. In this weeks exercise we totally let go of colour accuracy and play with intentionally modifying the colours in a photograph to enhance its mood and emotional reading.

In this weeks exercise we are going to concentrate on limiting our colour palettes to only two colours or hues. This helps us make our work more harmonious.

This weeks exercise is a real challenge. It is about creating work that follows the three colour rule. It might be easier to find old work that fits it, or creating work in the house with objects. Can you create a photograph with only three colours, and have 60% in one, 30% in another, with an accent colour only taking up a very small proportion of the image?

This week we are going to analyise our own photographs and our favorite artists to see what colour palettes we love. Trying to discover what makes an effective colour palette?

This weeks exercise follows on from this weeks presentation on composition. Exploring how repetitions work in your photographs.

For this weeks exercises we will return to a couple of previous exercises, one about white paper and the other about composing high key and see if we can take them further. The gauntlet is thrown, lets see what we can do by pushing our boundaries even further.

In this weeks photography exercise we practice composing by ‘blocking in’ the dark tones first. This follows on from our compositional tutorial about designing the shadows.

This weeks exercise follows the latest presentation on composing the highlights in an image.