I appreciated Bill's talented eye, incredible responsiveness, and gentle encouragement. I also thought the format of weekly assignments was effective in incrementally built/honed my editing skills. And, I enjoyed learning from my fellow students in the class and watching their portfolios grow and develop over the weeks.

The concept of the course is straighforward - find your best body of work and only add to it when you make photographs of equal quality. But it's the challege of going out every week to capture more material for the chosen theme, and then reaping the benefits of Bill's eye that makes this course really worthwhile.

Thanks very much, Bill

I was pushed to move forward and implement projects that had before been vague ideas.

My husband heard so much about the course that now it is on his wish list.

Bill knows what he is talking about!

The Portfolio Development class was an eye-opener, an education and a lot of fun.

It would be nice to have an advanced level of this class.

Bill illustrates lessons with his own work, making them simultaneously much more informative (he’s been there) and inspirational (both “Wow! That’s beautiful.” and “Aha! That’s why it all works together!”). Students benefit from Bill’s attention to detail and high standards that are evident in his photography. I don’t think I can adequately convey how much I’ve appreciated the opportunity to learn from him.

I began with a very wide variety of images from many different places, a couple of which were from my own “backyard.” With your suggestion, I decided to focus on images related to the Delaware and Raritan Canal. As I began to look more closely at the variety of settings of the canal and walk more slowly on and around the tow paths and connecting paths, I realized that there were “treasures” to be found. The process then involved how best to image these treasures: exposure; sharpness (including depth of field); lighting; composition (clean and lacking distractive elements); and my response to what I was seeing.

In the process of taking, selecting and submitting images and based on your comments, I found that I need to spend more time exploring, testing and thinking (pre-visualizing) before actually taking images. I tend to respond to an object and set up for a shot and then find that I did not check for distracting elements. The clearest example for me during the course was the beautiful image of the multiflora rose complete with a water droplet at the bottom. However, there was another blurry bright image behind it that was distracting. Had I taken time to consider this, I would probably have been able to work around this, or find another rose – the morning was perfect, after a rain and clear and early morning sun.

The other part of this learning with respect to composition, is that even when all of these concerns are followed, the available equipment may not provide the ability to make the perfect composition and cropping will be required. Part of my learning during the course was to shoot with cropping in mind when the cropping cannot be done in camera.

Lighting was important. Part of taking time to explore the subject is to see it in different light conditions and then go when the light is right. The wisteria was taken in both morning and late afternoon light. In the morning, distracting elements appeared in the reflection of the wisteria. In the afternoon light these distractions were not present. The wisteria was also an image where cropping the image improved it considerably, but could not be done in camera without losing some of the important parts of the overall image. Another example of exploring the subject in advance is the image of the wing dam along the Delaware river. I did explore Bull’s Island on an earlier shoot and determined that in order to photograph the inlet and other aspects of the canal I would need to come in the late afternoon and actually walk across the Delaware river (foot bridge) and up a path along the Delaware in Pennsylvania to get objects in the right light. That proved to be quite successful for the wing dam. I need to go back a little earlier in the afternoon for the right lighting to take the inlet to the canal.

One aspect that I did not understand as fully as I should have during the course was your expectation that each week we would be working on your feedback loop, refining the portfolio to continually select the best of the best. Instead I was busy obtaining new images and relating them to subject matter in previous submissions, with some consideration to the feedback loop, but not in relation to all of the images. This is an area on which I will place greater emphasis as a continue to develop this project.

It was my response to the image of the tree with its roots grasping the earth and the clear reflection that made me think of “hidden treasures.” The notion of “hidden treasures” also comes out in my search for ways to use tryptiches to show patterns and different perspectives of objects. I think the use of a Tryptich has a great deal of potential for the development of my theme as ways of seeing differently the treasures in the canal park, for example, same objects in different seasons -- the tree hanging over the canal.

I have downloaded the beta version of Adobe’s Light Table. I see this as a tremendous asset in using your feedback loop process. The trial version ends June 30, 2006, so I would expect some kind of offering soon, I hope.

In developing the theme, The Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park: Hidden Treasures in Central New Jersey, your comments on my final submission helped clarify for me the fact that I have at least two aspects of this theme: a description and interpretive aspect. I think the final theme (at this point) will not be an emphasis on “hidden” but an emphasis that, in the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park, we have a “Treasure in Central New Jersey.” I think this change will let me explore both the descriptive and interpretive aspects to the theme.

I plan to go back to my 2 Dimensional Design textbook and try to develop subthemes around the constituent elements, and their combinations, that make up 2 dimensional design: line; shape; value; texture; and color. As I hope you can see, I am quite excited about the potential that comes from participation in this class.

Thank you very much for your time and expertise. I hope that you are feeling much better. Please keep me in mind when your landscape course if ready to be offered, I will sign up immediately.

Thank you for a truly great course and for sharing your experiences with all of us with such sincerety and including a lot of information in the process. I have read many places that photographers are “a sharing people” and you have truly proven this generous willingness to share.

I have now taken six courses at BetterPhoto and I have enjoyed them all, but your course has been one of the most inspirational. Your mentoring and encouraging style has been a real delight.

I wish you all the best with your future Portfolio Development courses at BetterPhoto and I will certainly keep an eye on any new courses at BettePhoto from you?

For those of you considering to develop a theme in your photography, don't even think twice, just sign up, it's worth the fee many times over.

The instructor, William Neill, is one of the best landscape/nature photographers working in color in the world--I would never have taken the class if he wasn't teaching it. I was pleasantly surprised with his attentiveness the class, quickly answering questions and contibuting to discussions on photos. His critiques were very thorough and thoughtful, offering both praise and gentle suggestions for improving work. His approach encouraged a lot of student interaction and commenting--which added a lot to the class. I got the impression that he really cared about everyone's photos and tried to help each person realize their potential.

William's critiques and guidance have been invaluable.

William's willingness to share his knowledge, philosphy, and experience was an added bonus.

The most important factor in my enjoyment of this class has been the wonderful instructor, William Neill. William had great lesson plans, that gave us good examples and presented interesting challenges on how to focus grouping images into a meaningful portfolios. His feedback to me and the other students was both timely and very constructive. I learned as much from my own images as I did from the other student's work. William shared so much with us....his own experiences, images, learnings, etc. He was also very flexible, and he worked around our personal time constraints. The warm, friendly and encouraging atmosphere of the class gave me incentive to keep going.

I was already thinking in terms of a theme for my photography, but taking this class taught me how to expand that approach. It has really opened up several new venues for me which I am excited about exploring.

I also found William's comments on individual photos to be invaluable and they have helped me start thinking about new ways to approach my landscape subjects.

An added bonus was the high-level of photography displayed by the other students in my class. It was very challenging -- and fun -- to try and equal their high quality photographs. In addition, I found their comments on my work quite valuable.

I feel this is a necessary course for anyone wishing to develop a serious body of work.