Last weekend was the field trip for my latest photography class. The field trip is always the fifth week of the six series course, where you and your classmates go out “in the field” with your instructor and try to practice what you’ve learned.

This particular class wasn’t what I’d hoped for or what I’ve come to expect from Showcase (crap! note to self: type up bits for ETK). While our teacher was clearly knowledgeable in the field and had years of professional experience to share with us, he didn’t impart and he didn’t share. The content just was AWOL.

The hands on time over the last several weeks was non-existent, instead, we spent 90% of our time critiquing each other (as my friend HRH said: “I wouldn’t come to you if I had a cavity and ask you to look at it - who cares what these other amateurs think?) and the other 10% of the time looking at pictures he’d snipped from publications over the years.

Still, it wasn’t a complete wash. I tried things I wouldn’t have otherwise, thought about things in a little different way, and put some quality time in with Paulie where we coached and prodded and motivated each other.

Which brings us to last weekend and my dragging friends John and Liz out onto the surface of the sun to be two of our class models. I had a great time shooting them,though I still didn’t feel as though I knew what I was doing and I was terrified I’d mess it up and fail to get any good shots.

A few I liked of the dynamic duo.

What do you think? Did I do okay?

Nothing says sexy like coming home to this scene.

Is there any one thing your partner does that you wish maybe they didn’t? Even the teenciest bit?

PS It’s not the TP thing, it’s the making me think about him doing stuff.

No sooner to do I walk away from my keyboard yesterday afternoon, knowing I won’t be able to touch it for the next 9 hours and already flinching and twitching with withdrawal symptoms, than some jackhole spammer decides to spoof my email address and assault half of the planet with promises of replica watches and male enhancement pills.

Jerk.

Iffin’ ya wanna follow me and my tweetin’, click here. It’s a lot more timely than my blogging, of late…

On the bright side, one of my pictures was such a hit with my teacher last night that he saved it for his veraownpersonal collection to use in future classes. Yeay me! Paulie called me teachers pet. Boo me.

My Gwennie. The kick in the pants of it is that I didn’t really have to do anything but shoot her. She wandered around and posed without prompting, even telling me at least once how to take the shot. I love that girl.

This weeks assignment: groups.

I also haz homework to go with it…a couple of my girlfriends (and a few margaritas) helped me git ‘er done.

Mission: shooting people.

Full set here.

Waiter, there’s a gnat in my ‘rita.

It must be spring.

I went. I saw. I ate a delicious sandwich. I was disappointed with most of my shots (due to my suckage, and not a reflection of the super hot, charming and bubblicious model).

There are a few I took that are acceptable - by my low standards.

Shot of Sadie the Magnificent:

See the whole set (or at least 15 of the 534 I took) here let me know what you think.