With the age of digital photography, freeze-framing a moment in time can be as easy as setting the camera on automatic and snapping the picture, but if optimal conditions for picture taking are inaccessible, amateurs might be forced to manipulate camera settings — and without adequate knowledge they could miss the shot.

Dr. David Rorick, an instructor at the Church of the Holy Trinity Conservatory of Fine Arts has been offering photography classes for beginner and intermediate participants and beginning Monday, he will lead two summer sessions of the same.

Rorick said he began his photography experience during the film era using Pentax and Nikon 35mm SLRs, but moved to the digital format 10 years ago, and shoots Canon DSLRs exclusively.

As a photographer, musician and educator with more than 40 years’ experience in teaching, he said he became an accredited public relations professional later in his career and focused on document design, photography and marketing.

While living in Richmond Virginia, Rorick studied digital imaging and printing with Swiss photographer Regula Franz, he said.

Each of the two-hour class sessions uses hands-on experience, said Rorick.

“We shoot lots of pictures and share the principles of great photography,” he said, “and using hundreds of illustrations, we take the mystery out of concepts such as aperture, exposure, color balance, focus, perspective, lighting and composition. Anyone with a digital camera and some practice can learn to make great shots instead of snapshots.”

Rachelle Hintson-Ferris, a participant in one of Rorick’s earlier class offerings said that she wanted to take Rorick’s class to learn about her high-tech digital camera and be able to use it to its potential and her potential.

“I have a camera that does lots of things, but I didn’t know how to do all those things. My camera is a lot fancier than I am,” she said.

Ferris said not only did the class with Rorick teach her how to better understand all the “bells and whistles” on her camera, but that she also learned a lot about a lighting and taking portrait shots.

“That’s what I was interested in learning to do,” she said.

Ferris said the classes were “easy going” and by the end of them, all she wanted to do was to get out and take more pictures.

Susan Price said she signed up for the classes to advance her photography skills.

“I wanted to improve the quality of the pictures I was taking and become more intelligent about getting the shot and being able to do it,” she said.

“I found the class very valuable,” said Price, “and although it was over a short period of time the scope of the material covered was broad, covering the camera, use of additional pieces of equipment that can enhance picture taking and being able to try them out.”

Rorick’s photography along with his student’s work is what Dr. Charles Marascalco said enticed him to enroll in the classes.

“I saw some of the photography he (Rorick) took that was posted in the church and it was awesome. I was also impressed by the quality of the photographs that I saw from the students that had taken his class in previous sessions,” Marascalco said.

“David is a person who does a thorough job outlining what he covers and sends the class members the outline for further study. I have taken a lot of classes through the years and this is one of the classes that most impresses me,” Marascalco said, and added, “he makes you like photography even more.”

Phil Scurria said he and his wife Cindy took the photography class because they wanted to be prepared for the new addition to their family.

“With a new grandbaby coming we wanted to take good pictures,” Phil Scurria said.

“David really has a knack about making you feel good about your pictures along with giving constructive criticism,” he said.

The husband and wife duo have also taken Rorick’s Digital Photo Development class, the sequel to the Digital Photography.

Rorick said in these classes participants will learn how to crop images to create visual impact, learn how to adjust exposure to fix images that are too bright or too dark, learn how to remove unwanted elements from pictures, fix colors that are wrong and learn how to convert color images to black and white.

“We will also learn about the best ways to print our pictures and effective ways to share them online,” he said.

“Students need to have access to a Mac or Windows laptop running Mac OSX or Windows XP or later to take part in the class,” said Rorick, “and we will use Google Picasa to learn the basics of photo manipulation and then move to Photoshop Elements version 11 or 12 to refine our skills.”