Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden offers its popular photography workshops in April with courses designed for a variety of skill levels; from beginners to experts who want to hone their skills, the Garden offers something for everyone.

In order to accommodate guests with vastly different skill levels, the Garden offers classes from: Dave Kelly, owner of DEK photography, an internationally recognized wildlife photographer and an Adobe® Certified Instructor; and Katherine Leonard, M.S. Photographer. These instructors and the classes they teach are noted below.

Lectures and demonstrations take place in the classroom, followed by an opportunity to practice newly learned skills out in the Garden. Upcoming classes include:

Beginning Creative Photography, instructed by Katherine Leonard- Saturday, May 5, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Gain confidence and start with the basics. Learn when to use flash, the principals of composition, and how to edit and print your own pictures. Come away feeling better about your picture-making skills through in-class instruction, guided outdoor shooting, review and feedback of your work. Bring your own digital camera with operating manual, battery and memory card. This class is $50 for members and $56 for non-members, with a $15 materials fee.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® 3, instructed by Dave Kelly - Saturday, May 12, 9:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. Learn how the five modules of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can help you organize, edit and print images. Learn to create slide shows that you can email and web pages for photo-sharing sites. While intended as a beginning class for this software program, a strong familiarity with computers and their basic workings is recommended for best success. This class is $80 for members and $90 for non-members.

The Art and Craft of Digital Photography, instructed by Katherine Leonard - Saturday, May 19, 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. Take your photographic vision to the next level. Through stimulating assignments and critiques, students will advance their photographic skills and harness their creative spirit. The goal is the help expand students’ photographic skills and vision with hands-on experience and direct feedback. Bring your own digital camera with operating manual, battery and memory card. This class is $50 for members and $56 for non-members, with a $15 materials fee.

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography, instructed by Dave Kelly - Saturday, May 19, 9:30 a.m. - noon. Learn how to use a computer to create images that are outside the dynamic range of the digital SLR camera. Course covers photographic techniques as well as post production processing on the computer. Includes classroom and field instruction. Bring a digital SLR camera and a tripod. This class is $40 for members and $46 for non-members.

To view events and classes offered by the Garden, visit our event calendar: http://www.dsbg.org/events.php

Registration for multiple classes is encouraged. Participants should bring their own digital SLR camera. For more information or to register, please visit www.DSBG.org or call 704-829-1252.

Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden invites any and all amateur photographers to enter the ninth annual Shutterbug Photography Contest. We received more than 300 entries for last year’s contest and we hope that even more of you will enter our 2012 Shutterbug Contest. The contests First Place winning photos will be displayed in the Visitor Pavilion at the Garden in early 2013. Per the Garden’s discretion, Second and Third Place winning photos could be placed on display at the Garden depending on space availability.

The First Place winner in each adult category will receive a one-year membership to the Garden and a gift certificate to The Garden Store. The winners in each youth category will receive a Garden gift package. Other winners will receive free passes to the Garden.

Deadline for all entries will be Dec. 31, 2012. A distinguished panel of judges will review the entries and select the winners. Winners will be announced in February 2013.

Visit this webpage for more info and to see past winners: http://www.dsbg.org/shutterbugs.php