Philippine Center for Creative Imaging

A 200-page operating manual is not one's idea of a leisure activity, if all you wanted is get the most out of your camera.

This intensive hands-on workshop addresses the needs of the layman to squeeze the most out of his digital camera without dealing with technobabble. That definition covers most businessmen, students, housewives, and other technologically challenged laymen. While a small pocket of fanatics yak about the latest gear in their corner of the world, the rest of us will study how to take pictures and max out our digital camera in terms anyone can understand. Those who never figured out how to program a VCR, or who leave their "simple" point-and-shoot at home in favor of a cell phone camera will find themselves in good company in this workshop.

Who should attend

• Anybody who threw out his camera manual in frustration.
• Anybody whose blood drained away from reading the course descriptions of most photography workshops.
• Anybody who wants to maximize his camera for work, home, or school use.
• Those who skip the science pages of your paper for the entertainment and sports.
• Anybody who thinks photographers are from Mars.
• The beginner who intends to graduate to "serious" photography but needs to start somewhere, gently.

What will be covered

• The only two rules of composition you need to get out of trouble
• Goldilocks and the Three Bright Bears
• Four faults every beginner makes
• Five ways with flash
• The only six picture settings you will ever need--three if you can't count to six

Prerequisites

• Come as you are: we don't expect previous knowledge or experience with photography or cameras
• A point-and-shoot camera
• SLR's will be tolerated, but will be treated as point-and-shoot

Instructor

Ed Yap understands cameras and photography well enough to write about them in i-Mag Photography magazine, but he could never program a VCR either. He knows the mathematics behind the apertures, but can't figure out the new cell phones. Out of all this experience he knows one thing the camera-makers haven't figured out: cameras are just too complicated for the man-in-the-street.