We begin right where you are — learning to slow down, understand your camera, and capture the world in front of you with confidence and curiosity.

You’ll Learn:

💛 The Big WHY — Get clear on why you want to take pictures, and what draws you to capture what you see.
🌤 The Beauty of Light — Understand light in all its forms — soft, harsh, golden, and everything in between.
⚙️ The Infamous Tricky B*stard Settings — Demystify ISO, aperture, and shutter speed — finally understand what does what (and why).
📸 Equipment & Exposure — Learn how to use what you’ve got — and when to underexpose for richer, more detailed images.
🎯 Focus, Metering & Reframing — Take control of sharpness, exposure, and composition to shoot with intention.
🔍 Apertures Explained — Discover how depth of field transforms your images.
🪄 How to Take a Picture (Properly) — The step-by-step process for metering, focusing, reframing, and shooting — made simple and joyful.

• This week is all about movement - learning how to freeze, blur, and capture motion with confidence and creativity.

  You’ll Learn:

  📸 Aperture in Practice - Control depth of field for moving subjects and understand how distance affects focus and blur.
  ⚡️ Shutter Speed - Master freezing fast action or adding intentional motion blur for storytelling.
  🌤 Metering in Motion - Learn how to expose accurately as your subject moves between light and shade.
  🎯 Focusing for Motion - Use continuous autofocus and drive modes to keep your subject sharp.
  🪄 How to Actually Take the Shot - Step-by-step process for metering, focusing, reframing, and shooting with intention.
  🎨 White Balance on the Move - Keep colours natural as the light changes, and know when to trust Auto WB.

This week is all about seeing like a photographer - learning to compose with intention, trust your instincts, and tell stories that stop people mid-scroll.

You’ll start spotting great shots everywhere you go - the way light hits a surface, a curve in the road, a leading line through a frame, and realise you’ve already been doing some of this instinctively. Now, we put language, confidence, and skill behind it.

You’ll Learn:

🧠 Lessons from Motion - Build on Week Two and carry those tricky b*stard settings forward with more confidence and control.
🎨 Composition 101 - See the world through a photographer’s eyes and guide your viewer’s attention with purpose.
🪞 The Rule of Thirds (and When to Break It) - Balance your frame, tell stories through placement, and bend the rules when your gut tells you to.
🪜 Leading Lines, Curves & Clever Framing - Take your viewer on a visual journey that feels alive and full of movement.
🪩 Symmetry, Depth & Negative Space - Add layers, shape, and emotion to every shot.
📷 Shot Types that Tell Stories - Close-ups, wides, and everything in between - learn how each one builds emotion and narrative.
💡 Low-Light Shooting - Use aperture to control light and depth, avoid blur, and keep your images crisp even when the light dips.

It’s Portrait Week... and it’s a beauty!
This is where you take everything you’ve learned so far and use it to capture life itself: faces, connections, and stories that matter.

Whether it’s a creative in their studio, your kids at home, or a brave self-portrait, this week is about confidence, connection, and seeing people as they really are - light, quirks, laughter and all.

You’ll Learn:

🧠 Lessons from Week Three - Carry your composition skills into portraiture and start crafting images with emotion and purpose.
📸 Portraits Made Simple - How to photograph faces naturally, using soft light, flattering angles, and simple camera settings.
🌿 The Candid vs The Classic - Learn the difference between posed and in-between moments (spoiler: the best ones often happen when no one’s ready).
🏡 Lifestyle & Environment - Photograph people where they belong — homes, studios, or outdoor spaces that tell their story.
💛 Family Photography - Capture connection and movement with kids and loved ones, without losing your mind (or your focus).
🎨 Self-Portraits - Build confidence in front of the camera and experiment with storytelling from your own point of view.
💎 Brand & Creative Work - Explore how to shoot lifestyle and product imagery that feels real, human, and aligned with your brand.

• You’ve conquered tricky b*stard settings, mastered light, and found your rhythm behind the lens - now it’s time to bring your images to life in the edit.

  Editing week is where everything clicks (literally). You’ll learn how to elevate your photos with intention, consistency, and your unique creative voice, because editing isn’t cheating, it’s storytelling.

  You’ll Learn:

  🖥 Editing Foundations - Exposure, contrast, white balance, and colour balance made simple.
  🎨 Finding Your Style - Build your signature look through consistency, tone, and creative choices.
  ⚙️ Editing Workflow - Organise your files, use hard drives effectively, and create an easy workflow that saves time and panic.
  💡 Rembrandt Inspiration - Discover how light, shadow, and painterly tones shape emotion in an image.
  🪄 The Painterly Effect - Soften, smooth, and sculpt your images while keeping them full of life.
  📷 Before & After Magic - Learn when to stop tweaking — and how to know when a photo is finished.

  Live Workshop:

  💻 Lightroom CC in Action - Join Laura for a live walkthrough on editing in Lightroom CC. Learn how to crop, straighten, and fine-tune your photos for that signature Lens Eleven look.

You start to piece everything together with your final project, while taking advantage of a Lightroom Classic workshop.

It’s for you... if you’ve ever felt that spark to pick up a camera and see what happens!

It’s for mums on maternity leave who want something creative that’s just for them.

It’s for anyone craving a new hobby, a new challenge, or a new chapter.

It’s for dreamers who want to capture their family, travels, or passions beautifully.

It’s for small business owners and content creators who want their imagery to finally reflect what they feel.

And it’s for those quietly wondering if photography could be the start of something bigger - maybe even a new career.

SWYA is where so many women begin, not knowing exactly where it’ll lead - only that they’re ready to create, learn, and reconnect with themselves.

It’s more than a photography course.
It’s a reset, a confidence boost, and a reminder of what’s possible when you finally start where you are! 

You basically get me on a silver platter! 😂
Seriously though... you get full access to me and everything I know about photography. I’m on tap throughout the course (especially in those first few weeks when all the technical bits start sinking in).

No question is too silly, my inbox is always open, and you’ll have a front-row seat to weekly Zooms where we wrap up each session with a juicy Q&A.

Here’s what else you get inside:
✨ Six weeks of interactive, joyful learning, in a community that genuinely cheers you on.
🎨 Two Lightroom workshops to kickstart your editing confidence.
🏆 Our end-of-course Awards Show to celebrate how far you’ve come!
📸 Detailed, personalised feedback on every project - so you’ll always know what’s working and what to tweak.
💛 Access to The Full House Club membership while you’re learning, packed with live talks, workshops, and connection.

By the end, you’ll be shooting confidently in manual mode forever, armed with your new girl gang, a creative fire in your belly, and more self-belief than you’ve ever had. You’ll walk away with skills, friends, and possibly a whole new direction for your life.

If you’re looking for a more independent learning option, the Silent Seats (£599) include everything except the personalised feedback and breakout sessions - perfect if you already know a little about photography but still want the community, support, and inspiration to push your skills further.

Either way, you’ll finish this course with a full heart, a camera you actually understand, and a new way of seeing the world. 🌈

Both options give you the full SWYA experience - six joyful weeks of lessons, community, and lightbulb moments! The only difference is the level of interaction and feedback you receive.

Full Spaces include detailed, personalised feedback from Laura on every project, plus access to an intimate breakout session to progress faster. These spots are perfect if you’re new to photography, crave accountability, and want that extra layer of guidance and mentoring throughout.

Silent Seats are a new option for 2026! You’ll still get access to all lessons, Zooms, community hubs, and course materials - the only difference is that personalised feedback and breakout sessions aren’t included. You can still post your projects for peer feedback inside the community, so you won’t miss out on connection or encouragement.

Silent Seats are ideal if you already know a little about photography and want to solidify your manual mode knowledge in a supportive, creative environment, without the full mentoring or accountability.

Both paths lead to the same place: confidence behind the camera and that joyful “I can do this!” feeling!

Absolutely not! You’re my ideal student if you’ve never shot outside of Auto mode, have only dabbled in AV, or you’re standing there wondering what half the buttons on your camera even do.

My job is to meet you exactly where you are - and get you over the line feeling confident, creative, and completely at home in manual mode.

The only person you need to compare yourself to is you, one week ago. And trust me, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you progress once things start to click!

Each Monday morning, your brand-new weekly content drops straight into your course profile, complete with a video of me walking (and talking!) you through that week’s project.

Then, on Thursday evenings at 8pm, we jump on Zoom for a live session - part teaching, part pep talk, part laughter therapy! Every call is recorded and shared the next day, so you’ll never miss a thing if you can’t join live. The full Zoom schedule is available from day one, so you can pop it straight into your diary.

You’ll complete your weekly project in your own time - no pressure to have it done by Thursday. Most students take the weekend to practice, reflect, and share their images once the ideas have settled (and the magic has had time to brew).

You can do this course with any camera that has a manual mode (an M on the dial). If you have a point and shoot camera with a fixed lens, it may hold you back slightly but you will still learn how a camera works and how you can best use it to get great results. 

I would recommend a DSLR or a mirrorless with detachable lenses if you’re serious about your photography and want to progress faster.

You can also download my free guide here!

Yes - detailed, personalised feedback will be given by myself and @fayehattonphotography to help you grow and gain confidence.

There is no deadline as such. This six week course was designed for busy lives (because I created it in one!) If you find yourself lost for time one week, you can submit your weekly project the following week or the one after that! Most clubbers do their homework on a weekend when time and light is usually kinder. 

If you miss the weekly Thursday evening Zooms, they are always recorded and added to your personalised profile available via Lens Eleven log in. The information covered in the Zooms is to back up your weekly content and give you extra things to think upon.

If life gets in the way of you completing this course for whatever reason, you can re-take the course at a cost of £449, or download the course content before it ends and learn independently using the materials provided.

As this is a digital course and you’ll get immediate access to everything, refunds aren’t possible for 'Start Where You Are.'