Country Adventure

Earlier this week I had to do a bookbag drop at all the county schools for Copperhead Lacrosse. I knew I would be in the "backwoods" of the county so I brought my camera along to take some photos. At one point I was on this dirt road for 2 miles. I thought I might never make it home. Thankfully I did. And I even found a haystack for Whitney's wedding:-)

Loyalty and Love

My heart broke when I heard the news that our family dog Pinocchio had been diagnosed with cancer. Pinocchio is the sweetest, most loyal dog. Every time I come home he starts whining and rushes out to meet me. He is definitely a member of our family. I will never forget the day I walked into the house and saw a dog sitting in our family room. It was quite a shock! The ten years we have been able to enjoy his companionship have meant the world to our whole family and we are going to enjoy all the time we have left with him. I went to my parents house this weekend and did a small photo shoot with Pinocchio and my sisters. Our 20 year old cat, Princess decided to get in on the action too! Here are a few pictures from the shoot.

Trixie

So apparently I made Trixie mad in the last blog by saying she never posed for pictures. She decided to be cooperative and pose for me even though her feelings were still hurt that I bashed her in my last blog:-) Anyway here are pictures of my Trixie shoot.

Outdoor Photography

When the conditions are just right I love shooting pictures outdoors. This morning I got some great shots because it was early and cloudy and the lighting was perfect. No harsh sunlight! My cat Gehrig is probably the most photographed cat in the world. I love taking pictures of him for several reasons. First, I love the colors of his fur. They are very distinctive and I feel like they just pop in pictures. Second, he is a good cat and will usually pose for me and sit still. His sister, Trixie on the other hand is a terrible subject because she is constantly moving and her fur is almost all white. She is usually just a white blur in pictures. I have learned a lot about photography with Gehrig's help. He doesn't get impatient like a person would and lets me take as many pictures of him as I want. I can use him to try different settings and options. This morning I let him outside to play for the first time in about a week. He was enjoying every minute of it. Here are a few of the pictures from the Gehrig session:-)

Baseball Photography

So I decided that May would be my photography month. I am out of school until June 7th so that left me with days full of plenty of time to focus on my photography. Somehow though it is May 26th and I have barely lifted my camera except for the numerous graduations and other events that have occurred. So when my husband and I went to the Braves game for our anniversary I was determined to take my zoom lens and get some good shots. It was the first time I took my Canon Rebel XSi to the Braves games so I was excited to attempt to get good pictures. Well it turned out to be the most exciting game ever as Brooks Conrad hit a game winning, pinch hit, grand slam. It was amazing. And I captured almost every moment with my camera. I feel that these were the best pictures I have ever taken. It was much easier to take pictures in sunlight than in a dark bar like I do at concerts. Which I get very frustrated with! Here are just a few of my favorite pictures from the game. They were all taken at 1/500 shutter speed, f/8.0 and ranged in ISO from 100-200.

Brooks hitting the grand slam!


Celebration at the plate!

Brooks thinking it was an out!

You can check out more pictures from the game here or on my Flikr!

Beach Painting

I painted a new picture that I gave to my husband for our anniversary. I didn't get to take step by step pictures because I was in a hurry to get it done! I tried to decide between a beach scene and a sunset scene. I finally decided on a beach scene. I used four different colors of paint for the sky instead of mixing different colors from just primary blue: Light blue, white, aqua blue and primary blue. For the ocean I used turquoise and aqua blue and primary blue. I used white for the birds and waves. I mixed red and white to create a pink and mixed it with copper and gold to create the beach. The hardest part was making sure to differentiate between the sky and sea. I had to make the horizon line blend with the sea without making it match. I was happy with the final result and my husband really loved it! Let me know what you think!

Photography Challenge

I set a challenge for myself last week. School has slowed down a little so I wanted to concentrate on working on my photography. I have a great book, Understanding Exposure that photographer Josh Lamkin had recommended to me. I have read it in pieces but never finished reading the whole book. There are various exercises in the book and I would always get hung up at that point having so few options in doing the exercises. Or finding the time! Anyway, the challenge I set for myself was two fold: Thoroughly read at least 1 chapter in Understanding Exposure every week and a half and to not use the auto setting on my camera. I have a very bad habit of switching to auto exposure if I am taking pictures at a party where I have to get the shot really quick and I don't have a lot of time to get my settings correct. So on April 1st I spent the majority of the day doing photography. Once again my poor cats were my models. I decided to concentrate on my weakness which is correct shutter speed. So I tried a lot of different shutter speeds while they were in the sun and out of the sun and combined them with different ISO settings. I felt by just shooting hundreds of pictures that day I became more comfortable with the manual setting and learned more about what works.


So on Easter I put myself to the test where I took every picture in manual mode. The family was playing horseshoes so I was just standing to the side experimenting with different shutter speeds and ISO and also using my zoom lens to capture some close ups. There were a lot of action shots so that was fun to finally have a camera that doesn't blur the action. Unless you want it to! Although I will say one of the better pictures of the day my sister took while she had the camera in auto mode. A little discouraging!



However I felt really happy with the results of my experiments. I am now determined to not use auto exposure. It is really a learning process and I enjoy every minute of learning new things!