Grown in the light
Formerly Lost in the Light, back and better
Shoot what you feel, not just what you see.
I used to teach this course to help people take better photos for their business. That's still true. But it was never really about the business.
It's about learning to see. The camera just gives you a reason to practice.
The thing nobody tells you
You don't need another photographer. You need to stop being afraid of your own camera.
That's not a talent problem. It's a taught problem, and it's entirely fixable in six weeks.
Most photography teaching starts with the camera: settings, gear, technical rules to memorise. This course starts somewhere earlier than that, because if you can't see a good photograph in front of you, no setting will help you take it. Noticing comes first. It always has. That's the order this course follows too, and it's the order I still use myself, on ordinary days, whether I've got a camera in my hand or not.
I'm Jo. I've taught photography to hundreds of students, and every single one of them started the same way I did: looking at the world without really seeing it.
Not because they weren't paying attention. Because nobody ever showed them how.
Some of you will remember this course by its old name, Lost in the Light. People still message me asking for it years later. That means something, and I haven't forgotten it. But the course itself has grown since then, and so have I, so it's back under a name that says what it actually does now: not lost, but grown, the way anything does when it finally gets enough light.
Grown in the Light is six weeks of learning to notice, properly, and then learning what to do with a camera once you have. Some of you will use it to finally photograph your own work properly, the ceramics, the shoes, the flowers, the illustrations, whatever it is you make with your hands. Some of you will use it simply because you love photography and want to stop shooting on auto and guessing. Both of those are the same skill. This course teaches that skill.
What six weeks actually looks like
The course
01 Finding your style
Before you touch a camera properly, we find out what you actually want to shoot. Not what you think you should shoot. You'll pin ten images on Pinterest that give you that belly-tingle feeling, and land on five words that describe the kind of photographer you want to be. Print them. Pin them to the fridge. You'll come back to that page every single week, because knowing what you're aiming for is half the work done before you've picked up a camera.
02 Shoot with feeling
This is where we get technical, gently. Aperture, shutter speed, ISO, not as numbers to memorise but as the three ways you control light. Once you know what each one is actually doing, manual stops being intimidating and starts being the way you get the photo you saw in your head, instead of the one your phone decided to give you.
"Photography for me is not looking, it's feeling. If you can't feel what you're looking at, then you're never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures."— Don McCullin
03 Finding the light
Finding the light and seeing the light are the same thing. This week is about learning to notice it everywhere, the dark, striking patterns across a street, the way it dances on leaves against your own front room wall, until it becomes the first thing you see wherever you are.
04 Composition and storytelling
Composition is your personal viewpoint into something, and it tells a story whether you mean it to or not. A close shot adds intimacy. A wide shot with your subject small in the middle can show vulnerability. You'll learn to move your body around your subject rather than just standing still and zooming, and to ask who your audience is and what you want them to feel before you press the shutter.
You'll practise on the kind of subjects that teach you the most: a flat lay, a wide open field, a bicycle wheel on a wet road, a hand holding something dear, hair caught in the wind. And you'll learn how a handful of repeated compositions, a landscape, an interior, a close detail, a person in a chair, are what make a whole body of work feel unmistakably like yours.
"Look for the beauty. Look for your beauty. It might be in the details, or it might be as far as the eye can see. Photograph the things that mean something to you."
05 Easy editing
A simple, repeatable process for finishing your photos so they look like you, without losing an afternoon to it. We'll keep it to the two corners of Lightroom that do 90% of the work, Library and Develop, so editing stops being a separate skill you dread and becomes the last five minutes of taking the photo.
06 Shoot for you
Everything comes together. Whether that's your business, or something you'd love to shoot just for yourself, we do it together. This is where noticing, light, composition and editing stop being separate lessons and become one photograph you're proud of.
“As a result of this course I have become more observant of light, focus and how an image is created. I have a whole new respect for the artwork which a photographer creates.”
"My aim was to move from taking photos on my iPhone to using my Nikon manually, and to take photos in a style that expressed myself creatively. I took a photo on my iPhone this week and it didn't feel enough, so I took that as a sign I have achieved my goal.
As a result of this course I have become more observant of light, focus and how an image is created. I have a whole new respect for the artwork which a photographer creates.
For years I have been fairly passive creatively, quietly observing in the shadows. Because of this course I feel more confident that I have a creative voice that has something meaningful to say, after years of it being in a box, put away as it was not important."
— Former Lost in the light student
Who this is for
You make things with your hands, ceramics, jewellery, illustrations, clothes, flowers, whatever it is, and you're tired of your own photos not doing your work justice
You run a small business and want to photograph your products, your process, your space, yourself, without booking someone else every time
You love photography and have wanted, for years, to actually understand your camera instead of shooting on auto and hoping
You want a reason to slow down and start paying attention to your own life again
You're drawn to the ordinary, extraordinary things you walk past every day and want to learn to see them properly
You'd rather learn this once, properly, than keep working around not knowing it
Who this isn't for
You want a course that promises viral content overnight
You're only interested in gear and settings, not in why you're pointing the camera at all
You want someone else to do the noticing for you
The Brightline Project →
What's included
A live session each week, online, recorded so you can rewatch it or catch up if you can't make it live
The chance to ask questions on every module, answered by me whether you were there live or not
Ongoing support through the week for questions, inspiration and chat
Feedback from me on your submission at the end of each week
Get In Touch
If you're interested in working with us, complete the form with a few details about your project. We'll review your message and get back to you within 48 hours.