For a while in 2011, every Thursday I would make my way to King George Square at 5:30 in the afternoon and spend two or three hours walking Brisbane with a group of people who were learning to use their cameras. The sessions were run by a man called Nigel through a community organisation in Wooloowin, funded by Brisbane City Council, and they were entirely free.
What I found there was something I had not been looking for: a reminder of why I picked up a camera in the first place.
On learning in a group: There is something specific about learning photography alongside other people that solo practice cannot replicate. When ten people photograph the same subject and compare results, you discover immediately that there is no single correct way to see — and that revelation, for most people, is both unsettling and liberating. The student who has been uncertain about their instincts discovers that their instincts are at least as valid as anyone else’s.
On using the city: Brisbane’s CBD is an underused photography location. The architecture of King George Square has a grandeur that rewards wide angles and long exposures. The Story Bridge at dusk is a genuinely great subject if you are willing to put the effort into something original rather than reproducing the standard postcard angle. The building lobbies and arcades have light that most people walk through without stopping to notice.
On manual mode: The session I documented focused on manual exposure for night and low-light work. This is the skill that trips people up most consistently — the gap between what the camera’s meter wants to do in a dark scene and what you actually want the image to look like. I still find this gap interesting, years later. The camera’s idea of correct exposure is not the same as yours.
On the breapdancer in the lobby: One of the group decided to demonstrate breakdancing in a building lobby while we were working on interior exposures. He went from standing to a perfect one-armed freeze in about three seconds. Everyone had their cameras ready and most of them missed the peak of it. That is a photography lesson too.