V & J

I'm really enjoying this journey into photography for a few reasons, the obvious is of course how exciting it is to learn about the camera and through that learning how to take photos as opposed to snapshots. The other is getting to see friends I haven't seen in forever as was the case today. I haven't seen these 2 in four years so it was extra special for me to be able to do these pictures for them.

I was so proud of myself today, I learnt from the last session about forming the pose around the lighting rather than just taking pictures because it was a great pose. The river valley provided a lot of great lighting and backdrop however and I look forward to the next opportunity I have to shoot there. I had a few issues with shutter speed today, I had a hard time figuring out the correct speed for the lighting as it was later in the day than I usually do, however with it being later I got a couple great pictures of the sun flaring in the corner. I still have so much to learn!!

The "M's"

Today I attempted my first family shoot. It was soo much fun taking these pictures, they are such a high energy family. They were determined not to just get the typical overly-posed pictures and wanted something that actually captured their family.  Unfortunately "T" had a bit of a spill and I'm sure he will have a nice goose egg by now (although seeing the picture of him mid-fall seemed to make him smile!).

I'm still trying to learn to shoot in manual so the clouds were a big obstacle for me today. I would just get the light set and then a cloud would move and everything would change. I kept trying to change my iso then remembered that that would make my pictures grainy (thank you Melissa!). It was a fantastic learning experience.

Keisha

As part of the day of learning with Melissa I also took some of her sister Keisha.I love the vibrance of her pink sweater against the backdrop Melissa chose!

Dania

After the couple pics we went to ghetto downtown to take advantage of some of the older buildings, just us ladies. Again Melissa was amazingly helpful, showing me how to readjust settings to deal with changes in lighting etc. It was here that she let me try her lens and I fell in love with it pretty instantly. One day when I can charge for this I will have to go buy one!

D&S

Today one of my photographer friends (Melissa) graciously let me tag along while she was doing some pictures of her sister Dania and her boyfriend Stephen. I definitly see why people like taking pictures of couples! So much fun!
Melissa was amazingly patient with me and completly stopped taking her pictures a few times when I hit a button, or changed light and wasn't sure how to fix it. I learnt so much and definitly appreciate the oppurtunity. Now I just gotta figure out how to get an amazing lens like hers, holy amazing photos batman! Thanks for all the help!!

Easter!

I'm sure my family are going to get sick of me always having a camera in their faces soon, however my nephews are just too much fun to take pictures of to pass it up! I figure I gotta take advantage now, in no time at all they'll be telling me to go away with the camera, now they don't have the verbal capability! haha. It's sure difficult to catch them in good lighting but I still got some good ones.

I shot these all in manual having absolutly no clue what I was doing, so some of them are a little over/under exposed or grainy. However I started to learn about shutter speed and aperature so yay for me!

I noticed when posting them though that I favour the left third of horizontal pictures...so I gotta learn to mix it up a bit more and learn to master this scary thing they call manual!

Amanda

Today my friend Amanda graciously tromped through snow drifts (completely soaking her pants and feet!) to let me to take some pictures of her. I spent a lot of time looking up tips for taking portrait photographs on the Internet. I still made some stupid mistakes, such as turning the camera off to save battery and then forgetting and trying to take another picture! But overall I think it went really well. We took these at a school close to my house.

Things for me to work on for next time: Good angles to shoot from and lighting!