If you've been looking through your viewfinder lately, and find yourself seeing things as usual, then this course is for you.

At some point in our lives, we can all use a little inspiration. A push on the old caboose, if you know what I mean; someone to help you look at things differently. In this four week class, I will help you rediscover the energy you may have lost. You'll become more productive while on assignment, on vacation, or just in your own back yard. Finally, you'll be learning how to explore the creative process while getting better at what you love doing.

In the next four weeks, I'll help advanced amateurs and working professionals learn new tools in the ongoing process of becoming better photographers. I can't give you the 'eye', you already have that. What I can do is to help develop your 'eye' by showing you how to incorporate the important elements of design into your imagery. Some of these you might already know, but some of these are perhaps a little more obscure, but equally important.

When you think of the garden variety design elements, you think of: texture, pattern, line, and form. Important to be sure, but there are others that I will focus on during the next four weeks, as well as terms that are not necessarily considered design elements.

I consider myself an artist, but instead of the paint brush, colored pencil, or pastels as the medium, I use a camera. It's a wonderful medium because instead of taking days, weeks, or even months to finish a painting or drawing, the camera presents "instant gratification".

Imagine yourself (the artist) standing at some location you've already pre-scouted (you do pre-scout whenever you can, right?), but instead of a camera in your hand, you're holding an artist palette. Cobalt and Ultramarine Blue, Raw Sienna and Burnt Umber, Chromium Oxide Green, Cadmium Red and Yellow, Mars Black and Titanium White, have all been recently squeezed from a tube, ready and willing to be mixed together. There is a blank stretched canvas waiting on an easel, and a jar full of brushes on a small folding table besides you.

Now, instead of all those wonderful pigments on your palette, there are now terms like: Vanishing point, negative space, perspective, tension, angle of incidence, peak of action, light, and color. You're still an artist, but a camera on a tripod has replaced the blank stretched canvas.

Everyone knows what happens when you mix red and blue, right? You get purple. How about when you mix blue and yellow? Green, right again. But, what happens when you add tension and perspective together while taking your daughter's portrait during an outdoor birthday party? Or, negative space and a vanishing point when you're composing a street scene in a village in Tuscany during a beautiful sunrise? Well, you'll get the picture.

I call it "Stretching your frame of mind", and after committing to this process, you'll walk away with a greater command of your craft, a higher level of perception, and a re-designed portfolio to show off your new skills.

By the end of the four weeks, you will have learned the difference between taking a picture, and making a picture. Since these are the basic elements of design and composition, everyone no matter what level you think your at, will definitely benefit from this course.