Start your photography journey with Focal Point Class 2025 by connecting with our community and resources. Join the subreddit, Discord server, and subscribe on YouTube to prepare for a successful year of learning and growth.

The six-month course is structured into bi-weekly units with lessons and exercises to keep you on track. . The course concludes with a final project, supported by teachers, mentors, and peers, with lessons designed to help you make the photos you want to make.

The FAQ page provides answers to common questions about the course, covering topics like how to join, participation requirements, accessing resources, and connecting with the community.

Reflecting on why you joined helps you stay motivated and aligned with the lessons. Use your Learning Journal to write down your goal and select a photo you’re proud of, noting why it stands out to you. These reflections will guide your progress and be revisited during the course to track your growth.

Kick off the class by introducing yourself, sharing your goals for the course, and a bit about your photography journey.

Photography is a mix of science, technology, and art, focusing on both technical skills and creativity. This lesson encourages you to get comfortable with your current gear, experiment with settings, and remember to enjoy the process while staying mindful of your goals and well-being.

Inspiration is key to growth in photography. Seek inspiration from diverse sources such as galleries, books, and online platforms. Let’s look at some resources available to you.

Feedback is necessary in order to grow as a photographer. Being able to hear constructive, actionable advice about your own work will show you blindspots in your process. In this lesson, we’ll talk about the best ways to receive and give feedback.

Get inspired! Create a new photo, and share what you’re passionate about.

Welcome to our unit on The Gear. In our introductory lesson, we’ll look at what exactly a camera is, and the important features found in and on different types of cameras.

This lesson introduces different types of cameras, classifying them into six groups: phone cameras, compacts, DSLRs, mirrorless, film, and exotic cameras, with an emphasis on their features, advantages, and limitations. It aims to help you make informed decisions about camera selection.

We look at the importance of lenses in photography, emphasizing how lens choices shape the final image. This lesson provides an overview of lens components, explains how lenses function to focus light, and introduces key numbers on a lens, such as focal length, aperture, and filter diameter, with a primary focus on understanding focal length and its impact on the field of view.

This lesson emphasizes the role of lenses in shaping a photograph, particularly through focal length, depth of field, and focus distance. It explains lens components, their function in focusing light, and key markings like focal length, aperture, and filter diameter, with a focus on how focal length determines the field of view.

JPEG files are smaller, easy to share, and benefit from in-camera processing, making them ideal for quick workflows and fast-paced scenarios like sports or photojournalism. Raw files, however, retain all image data, offering greater flexibility, higher quality, and control over adjustments like exposure and color during post-processing. Choosing between them depends on your workflow preferences and photography goals.

A digital workflow organizes and manages images after capture, starting with DAM software to ingest, tag, and arrange files for easy access. Non-destructive editing preserves originals, while backups, like the 3-2-1 strategy, protect against data loss. A clear system saves time and ensures your photos remain secure and accessible.

Quiz yourself on the information you’ve learned in Unit 2.

In this assignment, you will create a mini photo story (3–5 images) around a subject or event of your choice. You’ll incorporate lessons about camera choice, focal length, and basic image organization. The aim is to practice both the technical and creative aspects of photography while reflecting on how different tools or settings can shape your results.

Exposure is the foundation of photography, controlling how bright or dark an image appears. This lesson introduces the exposure triangle: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, and explains how each setting influences light. Learners begin recognizing exposure problems and using tools like the histogram to make informed choices. A solid grasp of exposure builds creative control and technical consistency.

The histogram is a visual tool that helps evaluate exposure by showing how light is distributed across an image. This lesson breaks down how to read a histogram and what it reveals about highlights, shadows, and midtones. Learners will see how this tool can guide decisions in both shooting and editing. Understanding the histogram builds confidence in achieving balanced, intentional images.

The exposure triangle connects shutter speed, aperture, and ISO—three settings that work together to control an image’s exposure. This lesson explains how each one affects exposure and how changes to one require adjustments to the others. Learners will see real-world examples of different combinations and how they influence the final image. Mastering this balance is key to gaining full creative control.

Aperture controls how much light enters the camera by adjusting the size of the lens opening. This lesson explains how aperture affects both exposure and depth of field. See how changes to aperture can create sharp landscapes or soft, blurred backgrounds. Understanding aperture helps build intentional composition and mood.

Depth of field refers to how much of an image appears sharp from front to back. This lesson shows how aperture, distance, and focal length work together to control that sharpness. Learners will compare shallow and deep depth of field and see how each can shape the story of an image. Gaining control of depth of field allows for more deliberate visual choices.

Shutter speed determines how long the camera’s sensor is exposed to light, affecting both brightness and motion. This lesson covers how fast and slow shutter speeds can freeze action or create motion blur. Learners will explore practical examples and start experimenting with movement in their own images. Controlling shutter speed adds drama, energy, or stillness to a photo.

ISO adjusts the camera sensor’s sensitivity to light and plays a key role in exposure. This lesson explains how ISO works, when to increase or decrease it, and how it affects image quality. Learners will compare images at different ISO settings to understand the trade-offs, including digital noise. Knowing how to use ISO helps adapt to different lighting conditions with confidence.

This lesson builds on the basics of aperture by introducing more advanced ways to control depth of field. Learners will explore how sensor size, focal length, and subject distance influence background blur and sharpness. Real-world examples show how to create selective focus or keep an entire scene crisp. Mastering these techniques allows for greater creative intent in every frame.

This lesson takes shutter speed further by showing how to use it creatively, not just for correct exposure. Learners will explore long exposures, light trails, intentional blur, and high-speed motion capture. The lesson also covers tools and techniques that support slower or faster shutter choices. With practice, shutter speed becomes a way to shape mood, energy, and storytelling.

This assignment is a hands-on challenge to practice using shutter speed, aperture, and ISO for creative control. Learners will capture images that freeze action, blur motion, and show depth of field variations. The goal is to see how each setting influences both technical and artistic outcomes. Reflection and feedback help solidify the connection between camera choices and visual results.

Natural light is one of the most versatile tools in photography. This lesson covers how to observe its changing qualities, use different directions like front, side, or backlight, and shape it with simple modifiers to create mood and depth in your images.

Artificial light is anything that doesn’t come from the sun, like flash, lamps, or studio lights, and it gives you control over brightness, direction, and color. This lesson introduces the difference between continuous and strobe light and shows how to soften, shape, and color light using tools like softboxes, reflectors, and gels.

Light shapes mood and atmosphere in a photo, whether it’s the golden glow of sunset or the soft haze of a foggy morning. This lesson shows how changes in angle, contrast, and color temperature can emphasize texture, depth, and emotion, and how techniques like silhouettes or selective lighting can guide the viewer’s eye.

Composition gives you tools to create stronger images and guide the viewer’s eye. This lesson covers techniques such as rule of thirds, leading lines, framing, scale, depth, perspective, and negative space, and explains how to use them with purpose as well as when to break the rules to develop your own style.

Color is a powerful tool in photography that can shape mood and storytelling. This lesson introduces the basics of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, explains hue, saturation, and luminance, and explores color schemes like complementary, analogous, and monochrome to help you make intentional choices.

In this assignment you capture two photos using different light types, like harsh midday sun versus flat, diffused light, while applying the same compositional guideline and color scheme to both. The goal is to learn how light, composition, and color work together to create intentional imagery and then share your results for feedback from mentors and peers.

Workflow is about creating a consistent process so you can stay organized and efficient. This lesson walks through a step by step editing pipeline that follows the order of the editing panel, covering importing, organizing, editing, and backing up so nothing gets missed.

This lesson covers how post processing brings your image to life by enhancing contrast, color, and impact while staying true to your original vision. It uses Adobe Lightroom Classic as an example, though the concepts apply across most editing tools. The goal is to give you a solid foundation and vocabulary for organizing and editing your images, whether you use Lightroom, Capture One, Darktable or another editing program.

This lesson walks you through post processing techniques for landscapes and still life subjects. You will see how to adjust contrast, color, and overall impact while keeping the image true to what you captured. The goal is to give you confidence and vocabulary to edit your images with intention using any editing program.

This lesson walks you through real-time editing on two RAW images using both Adobe Lightroom Classic and Apple Photos. It shows how a photographer approaches post-processing step by step by example rather than by telling you to follow along. The video runs about 35 minutes and includes access to the original RAW files for you to download and study.

This assigment asks you to capture two images, one landscape or object and one human portrait, and fully process both using your chosen editing software. You will then submit the before and after versions along with a short reflection describing what you photographed, which post processing tools you found most useful, the challenges you experienced, and the type of feedback you are seeking.

This lesson shows how a single photo or a sequence can tell a story. You’ll break down mise-en-scène into setting, decor, lighting, space, and style, learning to use every part of the frame to build meaning.

We look at images from photography’s masters not just to admire them but to take them apart. You’ll practice reading setting, lighting, and depth like clues, letting their work teach you how strong narrative is built.

This lesson introduces the classic trio of shots: establishing, context, and environmental. You’ll see how linking them together turns separate frames into a clear, structured story.

Great storytelling starts with editing. You’ll learn how to cut a large batch down to a small, intentional series that carries your theme without losing the thread.

Break the Rules

You revisit composition, color, and storytelling basics, then learn when breaking them works best. This lesson encourages experimentation with purpose so your photos feel intentional, not random.

Your challenge is to photograph one day of your life, aiming for one image each hour. From there, you’ll cull down to a set of up to ten photos that includes an establishing shot, a context shot, an environmental shot, and a hero image, then share them with a reflection and request feedback.