My Random Thoughts

I have spent a lot of time, and I mean a ton of time, editing the pictures I took of my friend's kids last Saturday.  A little too much time, really.  But it has taught me so much, which is the point of doing shoots for friends.  The article I read last week said don't let people push you into business.  You need to decide when the time is right for you.  Now is not the time.  As much fun as it would be to make money on this hobby (because lets face it, money is pretty handy), I do not have time to set up a business, start paying taxes, etc.  More importantly, it feels great that people like, sometimes even love, my pictures.  I would love to share that joy with the people I care about and I would like to practice on other children besides my own.  But if is was a business, my expectations would be higher than what I can currently deliver.  Several reasons--first, I know I want to take pictures of children, and if I have to, their family.  But while the look I love is the natural, play look, I feel that the expectation of a business is a little more.

All I did here was boost the vibrance and a little desaturation on the teeth and whites of the eyes.  Since it is my daughter it only has to make me happy.  And it does because this is the style I love.  Soft, dreamy with sharp eyes and adorable face.  But I cannot get this consistently.  I don't know the lighting enough to purposely position myself to get this background.  This is okay!  It is just one of the things I want to study a lot more before I start charging people for my expertise.  It is also a look I want to know a person likes before giving them 30 images duplicating it!

Not to say it is the only style I like, but if I want to do more studio like images, I need even more practice!  Straight clean backgrounds, angle of natural lighting, being able to back up enough to capture the whole child!  All of those are things I am still in the baby stage of shooting.  No one cares when I only capture one great image of Sunflower among 300 (in fact blog readers are possibly grateful), but that would be different if I was charging money!  No one is going to let me come every day for a week in order to get the 20-40 images I would like for them to have to choose from.

I spent more time on the above image cropping and cloning out distracting elements than in processing the photo itself.  I'd rather just take the image correctly in the first place!  It still isn't perfect, but I hope mom will like it, or the BW conversion of it.  So that is another thing I learned; I need to slow down.  I want to allow children to enjoy themselves and not make them feel anxious about cooperating, but only practice and slowing down will help me properly capture the image I envision.  Not to say I don't enjoy editing, but what I really love is taking the pictures themselves.  Editing is fun and I love the creativity it brings out in me, but only if the proportion of editing in relation to actually taking pictures is reasonable.  The better I get at taking pictures SOOC, the less time I'll need editing the basics and backgrounds, and the more time I can take being creative and having fun.

Not to say I don't want to do photo shoots for my friends.  That I do want to do.  How else am I to learn so many things unless I take pictures of people other than Sunflower?  I loved the shooting time on Saturday.  But I need to set boundaries for myself and expectations of myself that are reasonable and attainable.  Including, I cannot expect every photo to be professional level work when I learned the word aperture 6 months ago.  The above image almost got deleted because I chopped her head and arms so much, but as I went pass it again, I realized, framing close has a great benefit--no distracting elements that need cloning out!  A few presets in LR and a sweet profile shot with 3 color options for mom to love.  I like the desaturated one and if this was my sweet daughter, I might even print it.  Not because it would win an award for best portrait, but because it shows the precious curve of her cheek and nose and the little swirl in her hair, not to mention it represents the active curiosity this little girl has.  When/if I ever make my hobby into a business, it will be when I have a clearer vision, can capture that vision more consistently, and with the goal of getting my clients a photo to treasure.  In the meantime, I'll keep snapping and share what I see in order to bring my friends a little bit of happiness without having the pressure of it being a job.

(un)NECESSARY Accessories!

You cannot be into photography for long before hearing a barrage of opinions on what you do or do not need to be a "real" photographer.  It can be overwhelming and expensive and so far the craving for more has not gone away.  However, this weekend did a lot to alleviate my yearnings...not because my want factor went down, but because I got some stuff...lots of cool stuff!

First of all, I have no more excuses for not taking shots of myself either solo or with my family.  Before I needed new shoes or toothpaste, I was given--for my birthday--a tripod AND a remote shutter release.  Too generous, my friend, too generous, but I'm not complaining.  I haven't had much time to use them yet, but it is really wonderful to have them.  It was getting a little tricky relying on mirrors for my self-portraits.

I apologize to the lady in the background--this is a trick mirror at OMSI

Now it wouldn't be too bad if the mirrors all made me look tall and thin(ner)...

...but the ones in our house do not, so a tripod and remote are very exciting to have.

I did play with my new toys for a tiny bit, so I present my first shot from the tripod.  Not my best work, but at least one child will have proof that I spent time with them.

Sunflower was not supposed to be in the shot.

Thank you for my truly necessary accessories!  I cannot wait to try it out for long exposure shots and more family captures!  It is the one thing I am looking forward to for tomorrow's camping trip--finally having time to play with my new toys.

...And read my new books!

One repeating pattern I noticed as I began my study of photography is that everyone recommends Bryan Peterson's book--Understanding Exposure.

When we visited a giant used bookstore this weekend, we all got to choose a book, so I immediately hunted this book down (somehow I also got 2 adoption books; I don't know how that happened!)  I haven't had much time to read it, but I have already learned at least one thing from it.  Specifically he does not do a custom white balance or auto, he keeps his camera on "cloudy."  I've seen people suggest that setting, but never why.  He says it just warms everything up and makes things more vibrant which is something he likes in his photos.  So do I!  He said if you didn't believe him just try it.  So while shooting pictures of Sunflower the other day, I gave it a shot.

This is the picture I took with my White Balance set to Auto.

This is taken from the same spot seconds later with white balance set to cloudy.

My husband says he cannot see a difference at all, but in PSE it seems obvious to me--especially in her skin tones and the white parts of the blanket.  Not that either one is perfect SOOC, but I am very pleased with the colors and tones in the cloudy white balance shot.  Granted I was using the light through the window which was behind clouds so it should have been the right setting, but auto hadn't figured it out.

So there you have it--my three new awesome photography accessories.  My thirst is sated.  I won't start whining about wanting more things for my camera, like a macro lens, until my husband asks me what I want for my next birthday...or at least not until Christmas.  (Is it okay to ignore that fact that if I get enough birthday money from my dad and grandma I'm going to buy LightRoom3?)

So I plan to post my "shoot and edit" edit in the morning (if you missed the "shoot" shot--I posted it on flickr), and I may be able to complete another post I am working on but I am going unplugged tomorrow morning until Sunday night (why oh why don't the mountains have internet?)  So thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave comments--I always love them!--but I won't be able to return them all until next week.  I also posted my Scripture and a Snapshot on my real life blog because it is centered around our adoption journey, but feel free to visit it there--it is the best kind of drop-in company, no cleaning required.

Some Animals!

When we were out of town last weekend, we went to the zoo on Friday.  I was planning to use one of the photos to join in "I heart faces" pet challenge this week.  Alas, even with the extra day to enter, I wasn't ready.  That works out fine since they only let you enter one photo, and I took a whole lot more than one photo of animals last weekend.  This way I don't have to pick my favorite.  I also don't have to compare my photography to all the truly spectacular photographers that participate in the "I heart faces" challenges.  Enough said.  Here are some animals...

Elephants

Bats--Not my favorite animal!

Giraffe

I loved the giraffe.  We don't have one at our local zoo.  I don't think it is possible to grasp the sheer height of this animal without another picture.

Giraffe and another animal

I cannot remember what the other animals were, but they were the size of large goats or deers.

Lorikeet

Lorikeet and my son

My husband was also able to feed the birds, but his bird was molting so was kind of frightening looking.

Still a Lorikeet

Lion

Hippopotamus

Hummingbird (this was accidental, I was taking a picture of the flowers)

Some kind of Cat

Since I'm not linking to a photo meme, I don't know if anyone will actually look at these, but I wanted to edit them and doing a blog post is a good motivator for me.  I am very pleased at how much I have learned about editing photos since my first week in joining Shoot and Edit at Jill's and Ashley's blogs.  I might never develop an eye for what makes a photograph art rather than a memory--those kind of photos that draw you in with everything and make you want to hang them on the wall even when you don't know the subject.  I am okay if I never do--I just don't think of myself of an artist.  However, I sure am having fun learning and trying.  Thanks for being along for the ride.

The Start of It All

We have been talking about getting a new camera for about a year and seriously researching it for the last 3 weeks.  I love my camera:

However, we bought it in 2004 and it is only 3MP.  We chose it because of its small shutter lag (for its time) and great lens.  It can usually capture the image I want but it has the same limitations of most point and shoots for indoors and I was starting to find 3MP limiting.  

So the question was, do we purchase another really nice point and shoot now or splurge and get a DSLR?

We could not decide because the point and shoot we liked the best because of its reputation for great indoor shots due to a better sensor only had 3x zoom and I LOVE my 12x optical zoom.

But if we bought a DSLR would we actually take advantage of its flexibility and use its different settings or would we be lugging around a large camera and continue to take basic shots?

So my husband started researching cameras and I started researching photography.  I found 31 Days to Better Photos at Life with My 3 Boybarians (can I just say I love that blog name) and started working my way through the lessons with my Panasonic.  I found the series about a year after she posted it, so I cannot get feed back from her, but I've been doing the lessons and I've learned a lot.

It took 5 different photo shoots and the help of my husband to get my camera to capture the differences changes in aperture can make:
F/2.8

F/8

My Panasonic only ranges from 2.8-8 which we have learned is not a very wide range.  We took pictures at all the options in between, but only by looking at first and last could we see a big change and learn what she meant by depth of field.
Anyway, this is what we were pondering and wondering what other people thought when our friend could not come over last night as we were hoping.  Because he wasn't coming we went to Costco and bought the Nikon D3100.  (We had researched many, many cameras and had the Nikon, Cannon T1i, and a Pentax on our wish list at our price point, but Costco had the D3100 kit for $200 off).

I feel a little ill about it and I blame our friend.  I am not a real photographer.  I only took like 3000 pictures last year, not over 10,000.  I really don't have a lot of time to adjust settings when taking pictures of my zing, zing two year old.  And honestly, I think I got a better shot of my Nikon with my Panasonic than of my Panasonic with my Nikon--though that probably has more to do with the color of the cameras, the lighting (same spot but time passed) and my familiarity with the Panasonic than the quality of the Nikon, but I worry.  I could sponsor a child in a third world country for 27 months for what we spent.
However, we bought it at Costco, so we have 90 days to return it, but I am cautiously optimistic we will keep it (unless the T2i kit drops by $300).
This picture from my Panasonic:

is more interesting than the same shot with my Nikon today:

But that has more to do with the weather than the camera (though I never would have taken the Nikon into the falling snow, so I never would have known what it was capable of capturing.)

But I am liking the vibrant colors that still look natural, the lack of any shutter lag, and all the math that goes into photography.  

And since we got the camera yesterday my husband and I have taken over 300 pictures so I'm thinking it won't go to waste.

Now if I could just remember that the smaller F-stop number means larger aperture and larger aperture means smaller depth of field (I think) because:

I wanted her feet to be crisp and the rest of the picture blurry.  Oops.