Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Brooke

My family had a picnic with my friends family and while there I photographed her little one, Brooke. She was such a sweet girl and really loved the clicking sound of the camera. She would turn her head and attention towards me everytime she heard it. It was funny.
Now I get to critique myself. I posted six of my favorites here. Overall, I'm pleased. I thought the composition was good. Some of the colors were amazing. We were surrounded by tall, tall trees which made the background very green once blurred. Her pink shirt gave a lovely contrast. I'm usually a black & white person but I love the color best this time. For the first few photos, the sun was coming through the tops of the trees and the light was brilliant. Then the sun went away. It wasn't exactly dark but my camera's built in meter was screaming for more light. I had the aperture wide open to create the blurred background, so that let in plenty of light. But, I made a judgement call to use flash just in case. I had nothing to bounce it from and since I'm still buying equipment and lack mostly everything, I had to use it right on top of the camera. If I could go back to the shoot, I would not use the flash. Some of the images are too light. I also washed out some of Brooke's detail in her face in a few images. Also, a few photos had some harsh shadows. But, that's ok. I made a judgement call using the equipment that I had.
I still see serious improvement in my ability to act quickly and to judge what to do in the situation. Having certain pieces of equipment will help in the future with this type of situation. I still have so much to learn but I can really see my improvements. I also notice myself applying many things that I have recently learned, which is great. I think I did ok at overcoming my shyness too. So, thanks to the B family for giving me the opportunity to learn with their beautiful girl!
























Friday, July 4, 2008

My first photo shoot

I think my first photo shoot was a success! It's hard to fail when you have great models! I had fun and I'm pleased. I will always have room for improvement but I think it went well.


















Park day




Flash experiment

I've been doing a little experimenting with my flash to learn about bouncing and the stops. Here are two favorites that came from that. The first is using direct flash and the second is using bounce.




Wednesday, June 25, 2008

a little business

I'm excited to finally start working towards becoming a professional. I've dreamed of this for 10 years now and it's actually going to become a reality. I've made a 1-2 year goal for my official start date. So, for the next two years I will be studying and photographing families for nearly free. I hope to make a tiny bit of money along the way to offset the start-up cost of my real photography business. I'm scared to death and super excited at the same time! Anyway, I wanted to share this wonderful news just in case I have some actual readers here, lol!

Summer is here and summer is sweet!

These are photos of my own kids from our most recent "photo shoot." I love summertime and summer light. I'm trying to practice using natural light from different directions. I still have a lot to learn about those freaking f-stops.





























Sunday, May 25, 2008

May fun and ramblings

I've been having a hard time with my photography lately. My camera and flash are not working together properly and my computer monitor on my laptop is broke. So I have the laptop hooked up to an ancient monitor and it just makes my photos look funny to me.
It gets so frustrating to want to take amazing photos and be so freaking limited. Blah.
That's all ok though... I'm still using a film camera and I'm making a goal to take 20-30 rolls this summer. That would be a magnificent amount for me right now. In college, I did that all the time! But, when I have a baby on my hip 24/7 it gets a little difficult! Regardless, that is my goal. Hopefully, I will have lots of good stuff to show on here!
For now, here are a few recent ones with my most favorite models.