Certificate in Photography in Napier

The first assignments are about controlling the camera, and Marine Parade at sunrise is the Napier classroom for it. The beach faces east, the Norfolk pines and the Sound Shell give you fixed subjects, and the shingle and the waves give you a moving one: shoot the same wave at 1/1000 and at two seconds and the shutter-speed lesson is done before breakfast. Later in the day, the Tom Parker Fountain lit at blue hour is the low-light exercise.

For composition, the Art Deco precinct is a gift. Tennyson and Emerson Streets were rebuilt after 1931 as a coherent whole, so the exercises about lines, symmetry and detail have subjects on every corner: the Daily Telegraph Building's façade, the Masonic Hotel's curves, the geometric detailing above the shop awnings. Late afternoon light on the pastel façades is when the precinct looks its best; the early morning is when it is empty.

Hawke's Bay's light is the other teacher. It is one of the sunniest regions in the country and by mid-morning the sun is hard; students here learn quickly to work the first and last two hours of the day and to use the verandahs' shade. Te Mata Peak at dawn, twenty minutes away, gives you the elevated landscape exercise with the vineyards laid out below.