I had my regular Leica lesson online with Donald this morning, he is young enough to be my grandson, but he is a wonderful teacher and has taught me so much about the camera.

Today, he told me when and how I needed to use a tripod. Tripods are important when it comes to the kinds of pictures I want to take, especially sky and cloud shots I’ve had difficulty with on the Q2 Monochrome.

Shooting up into the sky in a bright sun or in the evening is what we worked on. He wanted me to put everything on autofocus by the aperture and experiment with different settings. I had two good results.

Black and white is a whole different ball game from the color I’ve been shooting in for years and still use most of the time. We worked this morning on capturing the emotion of the skies and getting clear and more powerful cloud shots.

Donald, my Leica teacher. I love his attitude, his enthusiasm, and his thorough knowledge of the camera. I’m going to see him in person in May.

He told me I need a different tripod and that tripods are important for the work I want to do. I rarely use them, but I’m listening to Donald. That needs to change. After every class, he emails me some homework and goals.

This is the first time in my life I’m doing my homework. I went out this afternoon with the tripod to get this afternoon sky shot that looked so inviting. I got the clouds I wanted, the wind nearly blew me to the ground.

I took this shot east, into the Green Mountains. I really liked the cloud depth of field and clarity. That is new. I appreciate the way the trees are set off from the mountains. That is the best example of depth of field I’ve seen in a while.