Camera classes a hit at library

Sarah Ein­se­len — Staff

Cathy Pifer, Deb Schroeder and Ellen Matthews pre­pare to set the date and time on their dig­i­tal single-lens reflex cam­eras. The women brought their Canon and Nikon cam­eras to the the Galion Pub­lic Library’s dig­i­tal SLR work­shop held Sat­ur­day, Jan. 14, and taught by Galion pho­tog­ra­pher Mar­cheta Gibson.

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

Aspir­ing pho­tog­ra­phers filled the sign-up sheets for two recent dig­i­tal cam­era work­shops at the Galion Pub­lic Library. The wait­ing list for a work­shop built around point-and-shoot cam­eras was so long, an addi­tional work­shop is sched­uled next month for those who were on it.

Galion pho­tog­ra­pher Mar­cheta Gib­son taught both the point-and-shoot work­shop held on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, Jan. 7, and another work­shop on how to use a dig­i­tal single-lens reflex cam­era held a week later, Jan. 14. The work­shops were repeat per­for­mances of ones held early last year.

“We’ve had the pho­tog­ra­phy pro­grams a cou­ple of years now and we always have good turnout,” said library direc­tor Vicki Eck­en­rod. A dozen peo­ple were on the wait­ing list for the point-and-shoot work­shop, so another was sched­uled for Sat­ur­day, March 3.

Eck­en­rod and library pub­lic rela­tions coor­di­na­tor Valerie Waite attrib­uted some of the work­shops’ pop­u­lar­ity to Gibson’s pas­sion and abil­ity in photography.

“Another rea­son why I believe the classes are so suc­cess­ful,” Waite said in an e-mail inter­view, “is that more and more peo­ple are get­ting dig­i­tal cam­eras for the first time or get new dig­i­tal cam­eras and they need to learn the bells and whis­tles.” That’s why the work­shops have been held shortly after Christmas.

“Pho­tog­ra­phy is a great hobby that is gain­ing in pop­u­lar­ity because cam­eras are so smart these days that most peo­ple can take great shots,” said Gib­son in an e-mail inter­view. “Also, the dig­i­tal world is a lot more cost effi­cient than film, which encour­ages peo­ple to take lots of pics.

“Some peo­ple who are new to dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy are a bit intim­i­dated by the change,” Gib­son con­tin­ued. “My goal, which I share with the library, is to teach peo­ple that dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy is not difficult.”

“What hap­pens often in this class is that not only do par­tic­i­pants learn from Mar­cheta, but they learn from each other,” said Waite. “There will be peo­ple that come to class and meet some­one that has the exact same cam­era that they do and the two of them are able to share what they’ve learned.”

For more infor­ma­tion about library pro­grams, call the Galion Pub­lic Library at (419) 468‑3203.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Jan 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.