At this time of year the colour brochures arrive with their exhortations to sign up for the latest autumn courses. Apparently, “Cumbria is full of exciting arts and cultural experiences if you know where to look...”. Certainly the 48 pages of Your Cumbria testify to that! So we should all be making sure we get our three (or more) artistic and cultural experiences per year. Just like the fruit-and-veg thing, it’s good for our health.

The County Council insists we need to get more creative because it will have the effect of “bringing people together; building pride in communities; developing new skills...” Excuse me - but didn’t I just hear the faint echo of “lifelong learning” - the catch phrase which was current in adult education a few years ago, before the funding was switched elsewhere?

When I first ran classes in digital imaging, there were no other similar courses in the county. People sometimes came from quite a distance away to attend - Ipswich once - I remember. Now virtually every adult education centre and community centre has a course on digital photography, or digital imaging. I’m not knocking it. It’s great to see this catch on. There are a wealth of courses on digital imaging, with times and locations to suit all levels and requirements.

So what should you expect to learn on a digital camera course? If you have owned a digital camera for a short time you may not be familiar with some of the menus and buttons on your camera and how they can help. It’s the basic technical stuff that you need to know first, as well as how to manipulate and improve images on the computer.

For digital photographers who are well versed in the basics, the principles of using light, learning to compose and more advanced techniques on the camera and computer are the thing. Now a second wave of learners who have outgrown compact cameras are demanding more advanced courses on SLR cameras.

Access to digital technology which is affordable, has changed the way images are taken and viewed. It has put the recording of everyday life, formerly the preserve of the professional, within reach of anyone who has a digital camera, or camera phone. Crucially, you can now review how that image is presented almost immediately.

When you cluster around the photographer and are invited to view the resulting picture on the LCD screen, something new is going on. ‘Chimping’ as it is sometimes called, never existed before the advent of digital cameras. We have all become picture editors, making artistic and cultural judgements. If you don’t like it, just take another frame, or ask for the offending picture to be deleted from the camera’s memory file.

This is light years away from the relationship between photographer and model in the 1890s, when a subject might have to pose motionless for a portrait. Look carefully at those old photos of your forebears and you will see the pillar or table supporting them, so they could hold the pose without moving.

But is photography artistic? In 1865 Thomas Le Clear shows two small children posing for a photographer. The joke is on the photographer - he and his young models have become the subject of the painting. Degas painted a ballerina in a photographer’s studio in 1875 beautifully capturing the quality of the light.

Ever since photography appeared on the scene there has been a debate as to whether it is a creative art or not, and whether it shows reality. My opinion is that it blends art (the visual bit) with science (the technical bit) perfectly, and that viewing a photographic exhibition or attending a digital imaging course should definitely count towards one of your three cultural experiences.

By signing up for courses this autumn you are increasing your digital skills, as well as doing your bit for arts and culture in your local community.