The Best of The Lepp Institute was inspired by George Lepp.
Hal and Victoria Schmitt will run a very similar class to what George loved to teach at least once a year.

Be prepared to learn a lot of information!

Monday will start the week with your free breakfast meeting, then on to the Institute for lecture on all the techniques that will be employed during the week so each participant will be knowledgeable before the photography begins. Some time will be spent on the important basics of image editing in Adobe Lightroom and optimizing images in Photoshop.

In addition to the following scheduled events,
we’ll use the beauty of the Central Coast area at opportune
times to learn landscape techniques that include panoramas,
slow shutter speeds on water,
and the capturing of beautiful sunsets.

Tuesday we’ll be photographing a bevy of critters at the Institute where macro techniques, lighting, and a special emphasis on extreme depth of field using Helicon Focus will be the order of the day. We’ll have a number of setups for the reptiles, insects, and other fun creatures from biologist/photographer Dennis Sheridan’s menagerie. Dennis and his assistant Sherry will be on hand to help. Part of the day will be spent at the computers editing our images and learning the basics of image editing in Photoshop.

In the evening we will have an optional and wonderful shooting experience in Pismo Beach. We have been able to get our hands on country western horse riders and horses that will walk through the ocean shoreline at Sunset. We will be able to teach you flash fill without losing the beautiful colors of the sunset and be able to capture the movement of the horses riding by.

Wednesday morning we’ll be photographing models in an
outdoor setting using simple flash fill with the ambient light.
The emphasis will be on learning to use fill flash and photographing people in a natural setting. For those who are interested in learning about professional lighting equipment, we will have ProFoto travel lights available and set up with a model as well.

Thursday is for the dogs! The afternoon is scheduled with some of the area’s group of agility dogs.
These dogs compete in agility training where they jump hurdles, run through tunnels, and weave around poles at great speed. A few portraits will again be taken to re-emphasize the use of flash fill.
There is a lot to learn from the dogs in action photography. Timing, positioning, and the use of the features on our cameras that facilitate this type of photography will all help in our future photographic sessions.

The Institute will have Canon Camera's and the 580 flashes to help facilitate any equipment you may need during the week as well!

Thursday night is our traditional Wine and Cheese night! Bring a bottle of your favorite wine (beer or Martini) or you can choose to bring something to share like cheese, crackers, and any other little appetizers you find in our local area. This is a great time to hang out and talk to the instructors and work on your images with a nice glass of wine or munchie in hand.

Later in the week you will be able to print some of your better images on our Canon iPF5100 printers.

Who Should Attend?
This course is for digital photographers who want to expand their horizons and have the passion to try new things. We reiterate, this is NOT a class to learn basic Photoshop. You will be applying Photoshop principles to all the projects throughout the week, so participants should already have a good grasp of how to optimize images in Photoshop. An understanding of the fundamentals is essential for you to be able to absorb all the new Photoshop techniques we will be demonstrating.