not-too-beginner workshop in the London area

[miguel_martinez4]

<p>Dear all,<br>

I recently moved from northern Spain to London, and I am so far enjoying most of it. I bought my first camera, a Nikon D60 about a year ago, and have been having great fun with it. However, as I half-jokingly tell to my girlfriend, "my art has stagnated". As you may imagine, I want to improve my photographic skills. Yes, I'd love to buy a prime (like the 35mm f/1.8), I've tried shooting with an SB-600 and rotating the head is cool and I'm dying to get an UWA zoom. Nevertheless, I have the feeling that the only cost-effective way to improve my pictures is attending a course or a workshop.<br>

I've already performed a forum search and have found out about the RPS as well as about the Camera Club, which is not too far from my home. I've also learned about Calumet, but that seems to be more a shop than anything else. Furthermore, most of the replies were a few years old, so I have hopes to hear from the original posters as well. So my questions are:</p>

<ol>

<li>Does anybody have a suggestion or experience regarding short photography courses in the London area? I was thinking about one week long courses or so, not those one-day courses or a year-long thing. I certainly don't want to sign to a fine arts degree.</li>

<li>What is a reasonable price for those courses? £150? £300? I've found some using google for £400, but that looks expensive.</li>

<li>How basic are beginners' courses?</li>

</ol>

<p>The last question I ask because I fear that by picking up one of these, I'll be "taught" very basic stuff, like what an F-stop is, or about shutter speed. I think I've got the physics behind photography nailed, and it's the artistic part of it in which I find myself lacking (quite a bit, to be honest).</p>

[michaelging]

<p>Not in london, but the person who started this school was a excellent photographer</p>

<p>http://www.photography-courses.com/</p>

[miguel_martinez4]

<p>Dear Michael,</p>

<p>Thanks for your reply. I had already looked at that site before, but being near Swindon I was slightly skeptical. It may take a while to get there from London, and the UK railway system is not precisely cheap.<br>

Anyway, do you have an idea of how "beginner-ish" are the beginner courses? Or how advanced his intermediate courses are? I don't mind being taught any composition technique as long as it isn't the rule of thirds, but I'd really dislike being told that f/4.0 lets four times the amount of light in f/8.0.</p>