The first session of the course will include a short introduction by the Photography Experts team to explain to how the Masterclass course will work. This will include a full tour of your subscriber features, your document and recording repository, and use of the forum features. There will also be tips on how to make the most of Zoom to fully participate in the live sessions, and engage with Steve and your fellow course members. Access to technical support by Photography Experts will continue throughout the duration of the entire course.

‘In this Session, Steve elaborates on his approach to composition - why the so-called rules of photography should be considered as guidelines only and why & when to break them – and how to use compositional techniques to create stronger images. This will include the choice of focal point, the use of line & shape to take their viewers on a visual journey around their images, the orientation of the camera & the impact of that on how photographs are ‘read’, the need to ‘sweat the details’ to create photographs that not only tell a story but have maximum visual impact and the ‘reductionist' approach to composition to produce simple but effective minimalist and graphic images.

‘Steve believes that successful photography is founded on two things: -
Firstly, the photographer having something to say with a camera. American photographer, Gordon Parks once said “Those people who want to use a camera should have something in mind; there is something they want to show, something they want to say”; and secondly, communicating passion & emotion. Don McCullin (the British documentary photographer) has said, "Photography for me is not looking, it's feeling. If you can't feel what you are looking at then you are never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures".
This session will encourage and teach participants to effectively communicate a thought, idea, concept or emotion via their photographs and how to produce evocative images that convey what they feel as much, if not more, than what they see. Steve will use his images to describe what he was trying to communicate via the photograph (and where appropriate, what he was feeling at the time of taking them) and provide an insight to participants about how he used composition, post processing and other methods to convey his message.

At the end of Session 3 Steve will brief participants on an exercise to produce two images – one that applies one of the compositional ideas he talked about in Session1 and one that communicates a thought, idea, concept or emotion.
There will be a longer break between sessions at this point to give participants the opportunity to work on producing these images, to share them on the Forum and to get comment & input from each other (as well as Steve) prior to the next two sessions.

The next two sessions have been designed to allocate time to each participant to have their selected images critiqued and commented on in-depth by Steve, drawing on his many years of experience as a professional photographer and as a workshop leader & teacher. This process not only enables him to give advice to each individual but also to draw out generic teaching points of benefit to everyone.
The Remote Working Forum, significantly reinforced & developed through Sessions 4 & 5 will also provide an opportunity for participants to develop their own photographic analytical skills - invaluable in learning how to evaluate, interpret and understand how images impact upon those who view them; an essential foundation block underpinning the production of photographs that successfully communicate an idea, thought, concept or emotion.

The second of two sessions designed to allocate time to each participant to have their selected images critiqued and commented on in-depth by Steve.
At the end of this session, there will be a final opportunity to have a Q&A interaction with Steve to ensure that your questions and queries are explored and answered.