Wednesday, May 9th, 2001

I have had a wonderful time at the IPS Course this week. I didn't know photography could be this much fun! I have learned more about cameras and photographs in the last forty-eight hours than I learned in the past fifteen years! Shutter speeds, aperture, composition and metering have been taught to us in a very clear and fun way. We made our way to the cattle drive in downtown Dallas intent on getting six pictures, each displaying a different theme—blurred motion, stopped motion, deep depth of field, shallow depth of field, backlighting and hard lighting. We were sent our to capture images of a variety of different subjects ranging from bronze cows to waterfalls.

After shooting our two rolls of film we came back to the Dallas Training Center where we learned about the drama and life composition gives as well as many different ways to use flash photography. We were also taught the eleventh commandment "Thou shalt keep everything in balance." We finished by critiquing and explaining the images of the day and closed with a prayer of thanks to our Lord, asking Him to help us stay focused on Him and to remember that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

—IPS Student Kassie Dulin