After 16 months, I finally invested some time into a little photo course. Well, not only a camera course, to learn how to handle all the buttons on my Nikon, but, at the same time, a walk through Melbourne’s lanes.

Entitled ‘Photographing Melbourne: A Walking Tour with a Difference! Lanes & Arcades‘, our guide was photographer Terry Murphy from Melbourne.

Despite the rain, we had a nice walking tour through Melbourne’s lanes and arcades, and damn, I learned a lot about my camera.

Stuff I had once know, but forgotten again, or did not know how to do anymore because the technological jump from my old Nikon D40 to the new D7100 is just too big.

Eight years in digital photography advancement are clearly visible in a multitude of new buttons and – on top – a much bigger weight.

I learned how to quickly adjust the white balance, e.g. telling the camera what kind of light conditions it is shooting in – sunlight, shadow, a clouded sky, artificial light, and which kind of artificial light… Made a huge difference!

I learned that my camera, by taking three shots of the same scene in one go, can actually balance huge discrepancies in light – the ‘dynamic range’ – from a bright sky to a dark shadow, and construct a new image out of three shots.

I’m blown away.

I’ll have to make this whole trip again, now that I can actually handle my camera.

Just kidding.

I should really have taken the time to do this earlier on in the trip. Stupid me. But then there was always so much to do and see, and I took pictures, but there was no time for a full-on course.

The Centre for Adult Education, where I took the course, has a plethora of summer courses, not only on cameras, but anything else.

Walking tour, cooking classes, painting, sports… anything and everything. Too bad I’m only here for a month… and well, the prices aren’t exactly cheap.

In any case, a nice series of pictures came about from this three-hour tour, and a whole bunch of studies of what my camera does if I adjust that knob or turn that wheel just a little bit!

Here are a few fun shots from the lanes and arcades we visited.

Most of the street art graffiti was taken in Hosier Lane. They never last long – one of them is from 2013, making it the oldest in the lane.

It constantly gets reworked, especially during school holidays, when the Melbourne youth comes out to go wild.