We were contacted by Dawn, from Seaham Sea Glass Designs, to run a bespoke one-to-one smartphone photography workshop. Dawn spends a lot of time on Seaham beach collecting sea glass for her jewellery and art designs and so she was keen to learn how to compose photos of the beautiful sea glass she finds in situ with their natural surroundings.

Seaham beach is just a 30 minute drive from Durham and has become famous for its sea glass. These vibrant and colourful ‘stones’ were originally man-made glass, which, over many years, have been weathered and rounded into these unique objects. The reason that Seaham beach is home to so much sea glass is its location, which is near the old Victorian bottle works. The works discarded their unwanted glass into the sea which, over time, formed into the sea glass that washes up with the tides.

It was a moody, but bright, atmosphere on Seaham beach when we visited, giving us the opportunity to really use the sky as a backdrop for our shots. We spent time composing close-ups, focal shots of the sea glass and dramatic landscape shots of the arced beach, playing with the exposure levels on Dawn’s smartphone camera to heighten the sea glass colours.

After spending some time combing for some sea glass to take home, we ended our session learning about the editing tools and effective final touches that the free Snapseed app could achieve for her smartphone images.

If you have a particular smartphone photography skill you would like to learn for yourself or for your business, please do get in touch and we can create a safari tailored to you.

For bespoke smartphone workshops in County Durham and Newcastle, you can contact Becky at becky@jetblacksquares.com

For bespoke workshops in London, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire, please contact Jet at jet@jetblacksquares.com

If you would like to give a one-to-one smartphone workshop as a gift this Christmas, why not purchase a gift voucher which can be redeemed at any time over the coming year.