An online photography course · Stillwater, Minnesota
Learnto see.
Twelve quiet lessons on light, time and attention. A camera you can play with right here on the page. And a working photographer who looks at your pictures and tells you, kindly, what to try next.
This is the practice camera from lesson one. As you scroll, it changes its own settings, one idea at a time. Take over whenever you like: drag a dial, or tab to it and use the arrow keys.
AAperture priority
1/4Wooded bluff, 7:40 pm
1/30f/16ISO400
−2−10+1+2
±0
Aperturef/16
Shutter1/30
ISO400
Drag a ring, or use ← →Same camera as lesson one
i.Lesson 4 · Aperture
How much of the world is sharp.
The aperture is the pupil of the lens. Open it wide, to f/1.8, and only a thin slice of the scene stays sharp: her eyes, not the trees. Close it to f/16 and the whole hillside comes into focus. Opening up also lets in more light, so the camera shortens the shutter to keep the picture just as bright.
f/1.8soft background, lots of lightf/16sharp to the hills, little light
Try it. Drag the aperture ring to f/2 and watch the forest go soft behind her.
ii.Lesson 5 · Shutter speed
How time looks in a picture.
The shutter decides how long the camera looks. At 1/500 of a second the falls break into glass beads. At half a second they pour like milk, because every drop is drawn as a line. Leave the shutter open that long and too much light floods in, so the aperture closes and the ISO drops to make room.
1/1000frozen: every drop on its own1/2 ssilk: the water as a shape
Try it. Slow the shutter to 1/2 s. Outdoors, rest the camera on a rock or your bag.
iii.Lesson 6 · ISO
How hard the sensor listens.
After dark there isn't enough light for a fast shutter, and a slow one turns a snowy street into a smear from your shaking hands. Turn up the ISO and the sensor amplifies the little light there is: the shake disappears and grain arrives in its place. Grain is forgivable. Blur usually isn't.
ISO 100clean, but needs light or a tripodISO 6400hand-held at night, with grain
Try it. Take the ISO back down to 100 and watch the street double.
iv.Lesson 3 · Exposure
Three dials, one picture.
Every dial trades with the other two, and the meter in the bar keeps score. But the meter believes everything should be middle grey, snow included. Center the needle here and the orchard turns the color of dishwater. Give it a stop and a third more and it's snow again. Expose for what matters, not for the needle.
Meter at 0grey snow, safe and wrongMeter at +1⅓white snow, histogram leaning right
Your turn. All three rings are yours now. Push it until the red marks appear on the histogram, then back off a third.
02The course
Twelve lessons, in the order you'll need them.
Short on purpose: three hours and thirteen minutes of video, in four parts. Every lesson ends with one photograph to make, never a quiz.
Monday 12A
Watch
One lesson, about fifteen minutes, with the practice camera beside it.
Tue – Sat 13A
Shoot
The week's assignment, wherever you live. Your street counts.
Sunday 14A
Choose one
Pick your best frame and upload it. Just one: choosing is half the skill.
Wednesday 15A
Hear back
With feedback, Berit's marked-up print and voice note arrive.
03Feedback
Send one picture. Get a real answer.
In the feedback plan, every assignment comes back marked up the way a contact sheet is: a crop, a circle, a note in red. Then a voice note, so you hear how she'd think it through.
Lesson 8 · Edges and spaceGrete E., Duluth · 1/320 · f/8 · ISO 200
Berit's note · 2 days later
“The wall is doing beautiful work, so give it the frame. Crop just under the white line; the road below it is only asphalt. And catch him a few steps earlier, on the left third, so he walks into the picture instead of out of it. Try 1/500 to freeze his stride.”
1:48
Turnaround
3 working days
Group size
14 people
Live critique
twice a month, recorded
You can reply
once, to every note
Lesson 2 · ShadowsAnnika L., Red Wing
You exposed for the sunlit stone and let the shadow go black. That's the whole picture. Keep it exactly like this.
Lesson 1 · Seeing lightRolf N., Afton
Ten minutes later the mist would have gone. You got up for it, which is most of it. Next time, step left so the dock clears the reeds.
04Your teacher
“Most disappointing photographs aren't a camera problem. They're a looking problem, and looking can be taught.”
Berit on a balcony over Lowell Park, photographed by a student in lesson 10.
Berit Solheim
Photographer · teaches every lesson
Berit photographed the St. Croix Valley for fourteen years as a newspaper staff photographer: county fairs, spring floods, high-school hockey at twenty below. In 2014 she started an evening class in a borrowed room above a hardware store on Main Street, and it filled with people who owned good cameras and only ever used them on auto.
Stillwater Photo School is those evenings, slowed down and put online, so a nurse in Duluth and a retired engineer in Leeds can take them too. She still reads every feedback upload herself.
Behind a camera
since 1998
Teaching
in person since 2014, online since 2020
Shoots on
a 2011 camera and her phone
Answers
every upload, personally
05Pricing
Pay once. Keep it.
Two ways to take the course. The lessons are the same; the difference is whether someone looks at your pictures.
30-day refund on both plans.Even if you've watched every lesson.
Camera club or school?Groups of six or more save 20%. Write to [email protected]
Questions, answered plainly.
Something else? Call the studio on (555) 013-8152, Monday to Thursday, 9 to 4 Central. Berit's assistant Tove picks up.
Do I need an expensive camera?
No. Any camera that lets you set the aperture, shutter speed and ISO yourself will do, including most second-hand cameras from the last fifteen years. Berit teaches on a 2011 model on purpose.
Can I take it with my phone?
Nine of the twelve lessons work with a phone and a free manual-camera app. Lessons 4, 5 and 6 make more sense with a camera, but each one shows the phone version too.
I've only ever used auto. Is it too advanced?
It's written for you. Lesson one doesn't touch a single setting; it's about noticing where the light is coming from. The dials arrive in lesson four, once you know what you want them for.
How does feedback work, exactly?
Upload one photograph per lesson from the course page. Within three working days Berit marks it up with a crop, a circle or two and a short written note, and records a voice note of about two minutes. You can reply once to each note.
What if I fall behind my group?
Nothing bad happens. Your feedback window stays open for six months, and every live critique is recorded so you can watch it later.
Do you teach editing?
Lesson 11 is a calm way to edit in Lightroom, Snapseed or your phone's own editor: crop, level, tone, stop. There are no presets to buy.
What's the refund policy?
Thirty days, for any reason, even if you've watched every lesson. Email us and it's done, usually the same day.
06Start
Lesson one is free. Start tonight.
16minutes on seeing light
1practice camera to keep
3photos of one chair, in one day
4pages of field notes to print
Sixteen minutes on seeing light, the practice camera, and your first assignment: photograph one chair three times in one day. We'll send the link to your inbox.
One email with the lesson, then a short note each week for four weeks. Unsubscribe in one click.
Berit's note · 2 days later
