Yesterday, I spent about twelve hours with Karen Russell. Well, Karen and about 20 other women. ;) It was great! Karen is cool and fun and funny.
The photography class was just what I wanted. The first half was pretty much all about composition. The second half was all that stuff that is totally Greek to me. You know, aperture, f-stops, shutter speed, light metering all that jazz. Now, composition is much easier for me to pick up. I've read a few articles and books about the subject and understood them. (I highly recommend Tracy White's Photography for Scrapbookers)
In Karen's lecture we covered some of that stuff and a lot more! She passed around photographs that illustrated each concept. She also answered every question we asked, and we asked a lot of them! We broke for lunch after we had covered composition and before we started the technical stuff.
At lunch I had the good fortune to meet Liz Ness and Jackie Wood of Illustrating Stories. That was really cool. I'd read Liz's blog for a while and was soooo excited to get to meet her. She recognized me as melegs from the CKMB. The funny thing was that we had just sat next to each other for FOUR hours without a clue who we were! I love those kinds of connections! :D
After lunch it was on to the hard stuff. I took lots of notes and paid serious attention. It was like college all over again. :D I had been worried that the class would be beyond me because I'd tried to learn this stuff in books but been completely stymied. This class was great because Karen explained everything in ENGLISH!!! Not photographer lingo...ENGLISH!!! :D It was difficult and complicated but, it was understandable. So happy!
The class was supposed to go from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm but, since we all talked so much (Karen, too...she's got great stories!) Karen stayed until almost 5:00 pm to make sure we covered everything and got all of our questions answered. That is the mark of a teacher that is invested in her students. :D
After the photography class was over, I helped Karen set up for her Interactive Scrapbooking class. Yes, I know that makes me a suck-up, but I seriously had nothing to do until the next class! LOL! Anyway, after that I was heading out to my car and the two owners of Scrapbook Attack, Sherri and Sam, were walking out the other way with Karen when some weird looking old man ogled me! It was so random and so unexpected that it took me off-guard and I had no comeback whatsoever! I just kind of said "umm..thank you???". Meanwhile, Karen, Sherri and Sam were laughing their fool heads off at me. So, of course, I had to do a little dance for them and shake my tuckus at them! I mean, what else do you do in that situation. It totally only made them laugh louder. Ah, well. I do love to make people laugh!
After dinner (an oh-so-healthy MickeyD's run) I headed back to Scrapbook Attack and met up with Christina (Inara from CKMB). We sat next to each other during class and had a lot of fun. I got up on the table and danced (if you are the first person to do this in one of Karen's classes, you will win a door prize!). She took my picture and gave me one of Creative Imagination's journaling books!!! So flippin' cool!
During the class I also won a door prize and got some very cute pearl brads! 
We made two really cool layouts and left with lots of leftovers and inspiration.
All in all, it was a great day! If you ever get the chance to take one of her classes, I highly recommend it. :D
The photography class was just what I wanted. The first half was pretty much all about composition. The second half was all that stuff that is totally Greek to me. You know, aperture, f-stops, shutter speed, light metering all that jazz. Now, composition is much easier for me to pick up. I've read a few articles and books about the subject and understood them. (I highly recommend Tracy White's Photography for Scrapbookers)
In Karen's lecture we covered some of that stuff and a lot more! She passed around photographs that illustrated each concept. She also answered every question we asked, and we asked a lot of them! We broke for lunch after we had covered composition and before we started the technical stuff.
At lunch I had the good fortune to meet Liz Ness and Jackie Wood of Illustrating Stories. That was really cool. I'd read Liz's blog for a while and was soooo excited to get to meet her. She recognized me as melegs from the CKMB. The funny thing was that we had just sat next to each other for FOUR hours without a clue who we were! I love those kinds of connections! :D
After lunch it was on to the hard stuff. I took lots of notes and paid serious attention. It was like college all over again. :D I had been worried that the class would be beyond me because I'd tried to learn this stuff in books but been completely stymied. This class was great because Karen explained everything in ENGLISH!!! Not photographer lingo...ENGLISH!!! :D It was difficult and complicated but, it was understandable. So happy!
The class was supposed to go from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm but, since we all talked so much (Karen, too...she's got great stories!) Karen stayed until almost 5:00 pm to make sure we covered everything and got all of our questions answered. That is the mark of a teacher that is invested in her students. :D
After the photography class was over, I helped Karen set up for her Interactive Scrapbooking class. Yes, I know that makes me a suck-up, but I seriously had nothing to do until the next class! LOL! Anyway, after that I was heading out to my car and the two owners of Scrapbook Attack, Sherri and Sam, were walking out the other way with Karen when some weird looking old man ogled me! It was so random and so unexpected that it took me off-guard and I had no comeback whatsoever! I just kind of said "umm..thank you???". Meanwhile, Karen, Sherri and Sam were laughing their fool heads off at me. So, of course, I had to do a little dance for them and shake my tuckus at them! I mean, what else do you do in that situation. It totally only made them laugh louder. Ah, well. I do love to make people laugh!
After dinner (an oh-so-healthy MickeyD's run) I headed back to Scrapbook Attack and met up with Christina (Inara from CKMB). We sat next to each other during class and had a lot of fun. I got up on the table and danced (if you are the first person to do this in one of Karen's classes, you will win a door prize!). She took my picture and gave me one of Creative Imagination's journaling books!!! So flippin' cool!
During the class I also won a door prize and got some very cute pearl brads! We made two really cool layouts and left with lots of leftovers and inspiration.All in all, it was a great day! If you ever get the chance to take one of her classes, I highly recommend it. :D
4 comments:
It was so fun! And I'm so proud of you for dancin' on the table! Yeah for interactive scrapbooking!
Oh Oh Oh! Sooooo very cool! can't wait to see the pics? So are ya gonna give me a lesson now? Pleeeeease!! ;)
That class was so awesome and it was such a cool bonus to meet you, too!
Also, congratulations!
Oh, and I'm still not sure how you did it. I was soooooo drained after just the one class. You must have a lot of energy!
Oh, and one more thing, I mentioned to my husband that you went to OSU, too. Then, of course, he thought of a question that I should have thought of...when did you go there? He's an '89 grad. (We met there, but I got my degree from WSU.)
Okay...totally long winded. Sorry about that. Have a great day, you!
I love love love it! So classic Melegs! I forgot to mention you on my blog post today. You were so cute on Karen's blog. :)
Post a Comment