This day I love.......: course

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During my last visit to the baby show I attended a workshop run by the British Red Cross. The workshop was an overview to first aid for babies and children, and I left wanting to refresh my skills and perhaps pick up some new tips for first aid.

My youngest daughter is one of the most accident prone people you could possibly meet. We say she is best friends with the floor as she spends a large proportion of her time on it. It is simply who she is, I think she inherits my clumsy genes. I have had a few scares with her, and as a result I want to make sure my first aid skills are up to date. As Little Man gets older too, should he also have the clumsy genes I want to make sure I am ready.

The British Red Cross run a number of course, one of which is the First aid for baby and child course. When I enrolled for the course I was not too sure what to expect, and the level it would be pitched at, or if there would be a test or course work to complete. I had chosen to split the course over two evenings, but I also had the option to attend one day instead.

I attended the first evening feeling nervous, but within a few minutes I was at ease. The course was a good mixture of hands on learning, team working and listening to the instructor. We would consolidate ideas in a group and then discuss with the whole class. There was a relaxed feeling which made it comfortable to talk openly and as a result there were no silly questions and everyone could bounce ideas off each other.

The course touched upon most aspects of childhood illnesses and injuries from Meningitis to Asthma, and cuts, sprains and burns. One of the most important sessions for me was we were given a scenario and a bag full of household objects. Using our skills we had to treat the scenario with what we had. This to me was far more useful than teaching bandaging for example, as it was much more real world. Should my child now have a burn whilst we are out, or in the kitchen I would feel confident to deal with it rather than panic that I did not have the right equipment available.

There was of course a very serious element to the course. Practising skills that you hope you will never need, but to have them there is better than not at all.

Even though I had some prior first aid knowledge I left the course with confidence. This course is intended for anyone who comes into contact with children or babies (please note that this course does not meet workplace requirements and there is a separate course available for this). This could be in your profession or as a parent or grandparent. Whilst I hope I never have to use the skills I learnt, I will be forever grateful to the British Red Cross for giving me the confidence and knowledge needed should an emergency occur.

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I love my camera, you may remember I wrote a post and gave reasons why you should own one. I still stand by it as I love it and I love that it has intelligent auto. I would however love to use it better and understand what is happening. Whilst I do play around with the different features, I want to understand more of why that happens and how I can recreate something again.

This weekend I attended a photography course held at Millennium & Copthorne Hotels Sheffield and run by professional photographer Pandora Maund who runs Going Digital Yorkshire. You can read more about the day here and pick up some photography tips. I was keen to learn more about my camera and what it could do.

I arrived a little late after misreading the start time as 11.30 and not 11, that will teach me to double check things, but crept into the back of the room and sat on the Panasonic table. As I glanced around at all the others in the room I began to feel that my little TZ55 was out of place against all these huge professional looking cameras. I soon forgot all about this when we got stuck into the practical workshop. I came to the conclusion that I need to learn how to use the TZ55 first before splashing out on a camera with inter changeable lens, just to stick that on Auto too. I was re assured by one of the team that my camera was more than adequate and I began to get stuck in.

I learnt about ISO, shutter speeds, aperture and white balance. I had no idea my camera was capable of so much. I filled in my cheat sheet, which now accompanies me where I go, and then we headed outside to put into practise what we had learnt.

First it was Portrait shots.

My lovely friend Serena from Bewildered Bug was my model and she unfortunately got stuck taking pictures of me. I tried both zoom and only a little zoom. The idea was to keep Serena in focus but the background blur.

I then moved onto finding 3 subjects in a row and altering the focal point to change the emphasis on the image. This was something I was struggling with as although I understood the technique, I could not really see much difference on the image itself. I can tell slight changes on the images on my computer. I guess I have learnt that I need to adjust to a focus slightly further away than picking objects too close together.

Our final challenge was to take a Large depth of field photo. This is to keep everything in focus in the photo. I had a wander around the football stadium and noticed everyone taking similar photos of the ground, but this wasn't really helping my creative side. I did find a part of the stadium which framed the ground but I wanted something different. I went for a bit of a walk.

Just behind one of the stands is a beautiful view of the city, which I really wanted to take a photo of. Given more time I would have concentrated on this. However I also really liked the street below. I aimed to get the bottom corner of the road in the bottom corner of the picture. I wish I had taken another with the houses starting in the bottom corner.

I had a lovely day and was keen to practise my skills when I got home. So much so the poor dog was made to pose.

The first one I took came out a little blurry, so I adjusted the ISO until I could get him less blurry.

I played around with several ISO until I was happy with the image. I then tried to take a close up profile photo to get the background blurred.

I liked the image but thought it was a bit dark, so re took after altering the exposure.

Whilst I can appreciated that the higher ISO has made the image a little grainy, I like the way that it makes this photo look. I think it adds something to the character of J.

I am feeling more armed in my photo taking and keen to keep practising. Hopefully you might see some improvement in my images. This is a skill I have been wanting to improve on for some time and it is one I will keep practising.

I would love to know what you think of the photos and if you have any tips!

This day I love getting off auto

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