One of the questions I’m regularly asked before a photography workshop is what somebody needs to bring with them. It’s usually followed by a slightly nervous explanation about their camera being quite old, not having many lenses or worrying that everybody else will arrive with much more professional equipment.

Booking a photography workshop can feel like quite a big step, particularly if you’re still learning how your camera works or you’ve never attended anything like it before. You might wonder whether everyone else will have more experience, whether your camera is good enough or whether you’ll understand everything being discussed. These are completely natural concerns, but the reality of one of my workshops is far more relaxed and friendly than many people expect.

Buying a better camera is often the beginning of an exciting new interest, but it can also be the point where photography suddenly starts to feel far more complicated. There are buttons, dials, menus and unfamiliar words everywhere, and the instruction manual can sometimes leave you with more questions than answers. It’s hardly surprising that many people turn the dial to Auto and leave it there.

On Sunday 6 September, I returned to the wonderful RSPB Saltholme to lead another of my Beginners Photography Workshops. I was joined by a fantastic group of students who arrived with a mixture of cameras, different levels of experience and their own reasons for wanting to understand photography properly. That variety is something I genuinely enjoy because no two workshops are ever exactly the same, and every student brings different questions and ideas to the day.

This shoot was something a little different from the photography I usually share through here, where much of my work centres around teaching, wildlife and landscape photography. However, commercial photography has always been another important part of what I do, and I work with a wide range of businesses and commercial clients creating professional imagery for their websites, social media, advertising and marketing. It’s nice occasionally to swap the great outdoors for something completely different — and this Monster Factory Clothing shoot was a brilliant example of that.

There are some commercial shoots where the location is simply somewhere to put the product, and then there are shoots where the location is part of the whole story.

Yesterday I was back at RSPB Saltholme teaching another of my Photography Basics: The Complete Beginners Workshops, and it turned into exactly the kind of day I enjoy most.

Everyone arrived with different cameras, different levels of experience and, as is often the case, a few questions about buttons and settings that had never quite made sense before. Some had been relying heavily on Auto mode, while others understood bits and pieces but wanted everything brought together in a way that felt clear and manageable.

That is really what these beginner photography workshops are all about.