Spend a morning with experienced wildlife photographer tutor Nic van Oudtshoorn ARPS at Symbio Wildlife Park in Helensburgh learning how to capture dramatic and amusing portraits of animals in both colour and black-and-white. We will explore point of view, framing, lighting for portraiture, focus and depth of field, fill-in flash and composition.

Then spend the afternoon at a workshop at SGSCC processing and fine tuning your images in both colour and black-and-white. Symbio animals include red panda, a range of interesting monkeys, meerkats, ring-tailed lemurs, koala, cheetah, a variety of kangaroos, as well as reptiles such as snakes, lizards and frogs.

Students also learn the importance of respecting the animals' boundaries and minimizing disturbance while still capturing their essence and personality through the lens. The afternoon will be spent at SGSCC Jannali Centre editing, cropping and fine-tuning your photographs in both colour and black and white.

Please note: Symbio Wildlife Park admission fee is $40 and is payable by students to enter the park. This fee is NOT included in the course fee. We will meet at Symbio at 9.15 for a 9.30 start.

Course Outline:

• Choose correct camera settings for portraiture.
• Explore different angles for portraiture.
• Explore using different lighting for animals portraits.
• Practice using fill-in flash to reduce contrast.
• Select focus points and determine best depth of field.
• Evaluate different compositional techniques and apply them to portraits
• Edit photos in Photoshop or Lightroom.
• Convert colour images to black-and-white.
• Crop and fine-tune portraits on the computer.

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this course, you will know how to:

• Set up your camera menu for portraiture.
• Move away from Auto and use advanced camera settings.
• Be able to use different lenses and other attachments to capture animal portraits.
• Understand and apply depth of field.
• Understand colour temperatures and white balance and apply appropriate settings.
• Use fill-in flash.
• Use a tripod or monopod.
• Apply principles of composition, including Rule of Thirds.
• Explore difference between colour and black-and-white for portraiture.
• Understand basic photo editing principles and techniques.

What to bring:

• Students need to bring their own laptops with Photoshop or Lightroom loaded, if you do not have the program you can download it 1 week free trial version from www.adobe.com (You need to do this no less than a week before the course)
• DSLR Camera
• Tripod (optional)
• Any lenses you own
• Flash (optional)
• Camera Manual
• Fully charged batteries
• Writing materials, paper, etc
• Own lunch

About the Tutor:

'Nic van Oudtshoorn is a multi-award-winning photographer, including the 2024 Abstract Photographer of the Year in the professional category of the prestigious international ReFocus World Photo Annual competition. Photographers from over 60 countries took part. He also won a “Highly Commended” award in the professional wildlife section of the same competition.

Nic has been a photojournalist and documentary film maker for more than 40 years, specialising in close-up and macro, as well as black-and-white and wildlife photography.

Nic’s photos have appeared in books, calendars, newspapers and magazines (including Time and Reader’s Digest) around the world.
His photographic excellence has earned him the distinction of Associate of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, the oldest and one of the most prestigious such organisations in the world.

His footage has been seen on TV around the world, including National Geographic and Discovery channels. He has won numerous international awards for his photographs, both colour and black-and-white.

Nic is a qualified instructor with a Master’s degree from Sydney University and enjoys training photographers at local colleges and online. He is the author of 14 books, including The Photographer’s Guide to Close-up, Macro and Focus Stacking, available from Amazon as a paperback, as well as a Kindle edition.'

Other Information:

• To ensure resources are ready for you at the start of your course, we ask you ideally enrol at least one week before the course commences.
• All courses need a minimum number of students to run ("we try our hardest to get those") . If your course does not have enough students it will be cancelled before the commencement and you will be informed.