Photography Workshops

“Valerie Santagto’s classes are informational, demonstrative and fun. She makes excellent use of examples of her own work, and the great photographic legends to demonstrate the successful use of the principles taught in her class. Her instruction is clear and enthusiastic, and her willingness to share her own equipment to help her students learn is priceless. Valerie is so much fun, the time goes by in a snap. She easily adapts her course and attention to the needs of the students. I highly recommend taking Valerie’s photography classes! She’s a marvelous photographer, and a superb instructor.” – Jessica C.

  Introduction to Photography with Valerie Santagto

One-on-one classes and group workshops

1. Focus your Creative Vision 

For Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Photographers

Have you looked at professional photos and wondered how the photographer created such beauty? 
Do you want to impress everyone with amazing images? Has it always been your dream to become a photographer? Learn the secrets of lighting, focusing and motion that will make your photos look professional! Study with Albuquerque’s world-class photographer Valerie Santagto. Her career spans the high fashion world of New York City and Europe for clients like Vogue, Revlon, Pierre Cardin, Harper’s Bazaar, and Andy Warhol, to local corporate clients such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, PNM of New Mexico and numerous Santa Fe fashion catalogues. Valerie has taught at the illustrious Santa Fe Photographic Workshops.

What’s Included:

Prior to class, a series of instructional videos will be sent to each student. Day 01 is a 2 hour personalized tutorial and Day 02 is a 2 hour guided Photo Safari at one of Albuquerque’s many beautiful locations. In this class you’ll learn: Basic to Advanced photography techniques, How to use the settings on your camera and how to take photographs like a professional. By the time you are finished with this workshop you’ll be able to go beyond the “Auto” settings and use your camera and lighting as tools of your craft. You will be amazed at your ability to take striking photos!

This class will address:
Learning the dance between ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed
Aperture –  Controls depth of field
Shutter Speed – Controls movement
Lighting – Learn to light with multiple or singe light sources
Metering – A faster method to achieve optimal exposure
Composition -Designing a photograph using depth of field and “Rule of Thirds”
Upon completion , you’ll take photos like a pro

Cost:

$260 per student + NM Tax (15% discount for return students, 10% discount for groups)

2.  An Introduction to Photoshop and Lightroom

Pros use 2 key programs to process and retouch their images – Lightroom and Photoshop.

What’s Included:

2 hour tutorial & demo on Lightroom and a 2 hr tutorial & demo on Photoshop

Lightroom is a processing and large volume cataloging program that helps you stay on top of your workflow, i.e. the photos that you shoot in one session. There are retouching & painting features but not as extensive as those in Photoshop. You are the Photographer and the Lab. We no longer process in a darkroom! We process in a Lightroom in our computer.

Pros shoot in Raw format, process in Lightroom and convert images. The key issues are shooting in RAW format and converting to JPEG, PSD or Tif format files, adjusting exposure, brightness, contrast, clarity, saturation, color, and cropping.

Photoshop is a post-production retouching program, it is not a processing or a cataloging system. This part of the workshop will give students an understanding of the Toolbox, Layers, Actions, History, Menus, retouching images of people, landscapes etc. and correcting just about anything in their photos.

Cost:

This 4 hour workshop will give you the basics tools for using both programs. This Workshop is priced at $260

 3. Photo Bootcamp Workshop