London in (Christmas) Lights

I recently returned from a fun trip to London - as if a trip to this city isn't fun enough, I pumped up the fun a notch more by taking a really cool instructional photography workshop (ok, two!)  Christmas time is a looooovely time to visit, and its never too early to start planning your trip.  A friend of mine recommended this company, Hairy Goat (surprisingly neither of my instructors were actual goats, nor were they excessively hairy), but they were both terrific teachers who are passionate about photography and are oozing with technical and creative knowledge.

Hairy Goat offers some cool workshops:  one-on-one instructional lessons (which I did in the morning for about 3 hours) and other themed, more focused workshops like the Christmas Lights workshop (pssst.. look behind you..no I mean this background here behind this text), as well as city photography tours (like the mystery tour, which I did not do but it gets great reviews). Two workshops in one day made for a full day (especially after a night sampling the adorable pubs and varieties of beer I'm not accustomed to here in Munich).  But it also gave me a chance to practice what I learned in the morning..on a very chilly London day.

We practiced panning, zoom bursts, depth of field shots and a lot of aperture vs. ISO vs. shutter speed techniques in the morning.  Tricky stuff, if you're really trying to do it correctly and not just wing it.   In the evening we trapsed around town with our tripods to some nicely-decorated sites (you feel a lot less silly walking around with other like-minded photo geeks than you do by yourself).  The guides really know their way around London.   Obviously, I'm still learning but now I hope to be more in control, making conscious decisions about my settings, without missing the moment.  Afterwards we tucked away into a cozy pub for some Christmas cheer and beer together, Cheers!