IPS | Manitou Springs, CO

In September, I had the opportunity to attend Prizewinning Photography at Institute of Photographic Studies (IPS) in Manitou Springs, Colorado.

This week long class began on Sunday afternoon.....Dad and Mom drove me out, then drove back home---All in one day! 

My best friend gave me a RevHoney energy drink for the trip up, and when we filled the car with gas, there was a RevHoney sign!

  

See the faint outline of Pikes Peak?

 Almost there!

During the week, I stayed at Summit Ministries main headquarters.

View out my window!

Every day we talked about a different part of photography, then we would have an assignment to fulfill.

Here are some of the photos I took of a variety of things to complete the task.

Shutter Speed

Directional Light

 

 Cool Buildings

Warm tones

Cute Hydrant

Another Shutter Speed

One afternoon we went to Rainbow Falls to practice on our Shutter Speed.

For a water photo you usually do 1-4 seconds!

 

Every day we had a contest. This day the subject was "Water"

 

I got to ride in a big yellow school bus for the first time ever!

We worked on portraiture with a group of two other people.

Our trio was pretty great!

Here Jackie is posing for natural window lighting.

 This contest subject was "Awkward"

Macro 

 One day it rained and we did an assignment of wide, medium, and detail shots.

This is one of my detail shots.

On our last day (Friday) we went to Garden of the Gods.

It was beautiful!

Two of my instructors, Rowan and Jocelyn Gillson.

Jocelyn did a photo shoot demo for all the students while we were at GOTG.

It was really neat to see a professional at work....live!

 Our assignment after the photo shoot, was to have our own "photo shoot" with our portraiture group.

Here is Eric looking great----his outfit matched the location very well!

Jackie!

Jackie and me

My instructors and me.

They were all excellent!

Megan and me!

Our last meal on Friday was Fajitas...the meals all week were SO good!

A block or so away from our hotel, there was a fabulous custard place.

I went 3 times during the week! It was SO good!

Here are my roommates and me!

A bunch of us after we had some tasty custard! It was that good!

After our custard, some of us walked around town, then came back to the hotel, and played a great game of 

"Spoons"

On Saturday, most of the people left, except a handful that were staying for the 2nd week of Prizewinning Photography. My family was going to pick me up late afternoon, so I had most of the day to hang out in downtown Manitou.

Here Jackie and I am trying on some shades at one of the shops.