The Creative Camera

Day 1 – The Camera & Creative Control
The weekend begins with an introduction to your digital camera anatomy and how to switch from auto to manual control settings. Learn about the fundamentals of the exposure triangle—aperture, shutter speed, and ISO—then apply these concepts in a studio portrait session, experimenting with depth of field and focal length.

In the afternoon, Ellen Dahl introduces you to the creative potential in capturing motion. Through hands-on exercises, you’ll learn how to freeze or blur movement using different shutter speeds, followed by a group image review with discussion on results and techniques learned.

Day 2 – Developing a Creative Eye and Editing
The second day begins with key composition principles: rule of thirds, leading lines, framing, and negative space. A guided photo walk around campus allows students to apply these compositional ideas and refine their exposure and framing skills in real-world settings.

In the afternoon, Ellen introduces basic Adobe Photoshop: how to import, organize, and edit images—cropping, straightening, and adjusting exposure, contrast, and colour. Simple creative edits using layers and masks round out the session. The workshop ends with a group showcase, feedback, and Q&A.

Students will leave with confidence using their camera’s manual settings, an understanding of how exposure and focal length shape images, a strong grasp of composition, and a basic Photoshop editing workflow.

* NAS Short Courses are open to students of ages 16 years and over. The NAS Art Club is open to students between 15 - 17 years of age.

* Photography short courses may be held in upstairs studios. If access to stairs is not suitable, please contact us at short.courses@nas.edu.au

* What to bring? Please refer to the list of required materials in the Art Materials field below. 

Students must supply their own art materials, please refer to the list below. 

• Bring your choice of camera equipment, however it must be a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) or a Mirrorless digital camera body. The camera must have Shutter priority (Tv/S), Aperture priority (Av/A) and Manual (M) exposure control modes
• One or more camera lenses
• A cleared memory card and fully charged battery
• Notebook and pen
• Enclosed footwear is essential in all studios on campus. 

Dr Ellen Dahl is a visual artist and educator. Originally from Arctic Norway, she moved to Australia as an adult and now lives and works on Gadigal Country in Sydney. Ellen’s lens-based art practice engages with the expanded photographic field, underpinned by an ongoing inquiry into photography’s intrinsic role in shaping how we see and feel about the world. Her work often explores the medium’s relationship to time, working across photography, video and still-motion, sound, and installation.

Ellen holds a Master of Fine Arts (Research) from Sydney College of the Arts and a PhD from the School of Creative Arts and Media, University of Tasmania. She lectures in Screen Arts at Sydney College of the Arts and in Photomedia at the National Art School. She co-coordinated and curated Light Matter—a symposium on the expanded field of photography held at the University of Technology Sydney, presented in conjunction with an exhibition at the Australian Centre for Photography.

Her exhibition history includes Unseen Photo Fair (Amsterdam), This Is No Fantasy Gallery (Melbourne), Australian Centre for Photography (Sydney), Dominik Mersch Gallery (Sydney), Centre for Contemporary Photography (Melbourne), National Portrait Gallery (Canberra), Firstdraft (Sydney), and Verge Gallery (University of Sydney). Ellen has been a finalist in numerous art awards and is the recipient of the 2024 biannual MAMA National Photography Prize. She is represented by THIS IS NO FANTASY.