Luke: Lighting Up Our Lives: Me Time

28 April 2013

Me Time

Take some much needed time for me? Yes Please!

Yesterday morning I took a photography class. I've had a DSLR camera for a couple years now, but have never taken the time to learn the manual settings. I've always aspired to become a better photographer, but outside of reading the manual and buying a few "how to" books, which I've somewhat thumbed through... I've never done much else to learn. Seriously, like I have time to study, play around, critique, tweak and re-learn? Nope, I've just used the generic automatic settings and have called it good. I've been half-heartedly looking for classes, but have had a hard time finding anything local. Finally I found a local photographer offering a small hands-on class and was fortunate to sign up. We went over basic manual settings yesterday and took the time to get our cameras set up so the settings should just need tweaked based on the variables of our environment - i.e. lighting, subjects, movement, etc. We also spent time shooting and she critiqued our shots and helped us determine what we might have done differently with the settings. One of my big take-a ways was that I needed a different lens to get the lower aperture settings I'd been trying for on my own before the class (to get a maximum boekah effect aka the blurry background) and it just so happened that the lens I needed (a 50 mm) to get the type of image I was hoping for was on sale at Best Buy yesterday so following the class, I stopped over and picked one up! I came home and since Matthew was sleeping, I practiced a little with Luke. I have a looonnnngggg way to go before I think I'll feed good about my skills, but this is a step in the right direction. I enjoy documenting and archiving our family's memories and photography is a major part of that process.

I took the following non-edited photos with manual settings and using natural light. Hopefully with practice I'll get better and will be able to share more exciting images in the future!