Help for Better Photographs?

This post is a combination of a question to all of you lovely readers and a great tip for you NYC readers out there.

Well, I started looking into taking better photographs a while ago, after stealing my guy's camera.  It would be really great for the blog and even better for real life!  I took waaay too many pictures on my trip, some of which I wish turned out better.  :(

The Cliffs of Moher look sooo much better in real life!

Over the weeks, I figured out that day lighting is so much better for photographs (duh!), even if I had to drag my dress form down the stairs and outside for every garment.

Then, I even figured out on my own a couple of quick fixes using Photoshop and wrote a post on it here.

Just this week, I was featured on Domesblissity for my post on organizing your fabric stash, and it was the worst picture ever!  Ugh, back to figuring out how to take better pictures!

I'm still not quite comfortable with knowing my way around a camera and I looked into some beginning photography classes in my area.  The few that I found didn't fit into my budget or schedule.

Then, I stumbled across this awesome website called Vimbly.  They listed several options for  photography classes with schedule and price comparisons.  Sooo simple!

I poked around more and found an area for crafty actvities!  Um yes, I want to learn to make a terrarium.  :)  And brush up on my knitting skills enough to make a garment?  I would looove to!  Custom perfumery, printmaking, woodcarving, bookmaking, glassblowing, soapmaking, and stationery making?  Yes!

That's a good ten activities that I was interested in without even looking at the cooking, dancing, and even martial arts categories.  Neat!


Then, I was disappointed to find out that they're only located in New York.  But, for all of my friends and readers in NYC, if you're looking for things to do in your area, you're in luck.  Hopefully Vimbly can expand to L.A., because it takes FOREVER to look up this stuff on your own and it would be so convenient.

Source

Well, until there's something for California, does anybody know of any photography classes in the area that I can look into?  I really want to figure out how to compose pictures better and learn all of the manual settings on this thing!

I've seen some web series, but they're kind of hard to follow for a beginner.  Besides, it's so much better and easier when you learn directly from someone.

Thanks in advance for your advice!