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52 Week Challenge: Week 5 - Best Friends

The theme for this week was "Best Friends", so my oldest and her best friend were happy to help me out for this week's assignment.  We had lots of laughter trying to pull this off..... I wanted to capture the girls blowing glitter from their hands, but instead of really getting the look I had envisioned in my head, we got a lot of laughter, squinty eyes, & monkey faces!  If I had this to do over again, I'd stand on a step stool and frame it so that you can see the glitter in their hands better.  These are my favorites from the bunch.

CM 101 Class: Week 3

This week we are to start putting everything together.   Can you sense the S-T-R-E-S-S?  I made the mistake of messing with my BBF custom settings and I can't remember what I had it on when I initially set it, so I feel like I've struggled to put it all together......at least smoothly.  I still feel a little bit "all thumbs" when it comes to changing my settings.  And the jumpy meter is about to drive me crazy.
Oh, and I forgot to mention it has rained everyday this week......well until today.  So I begged and pleaded with the kids to be my models yet again for me to practice.

Photo #1: Emily......can't you tell she is just thrilled? I had to work quickly, because her sighs were very audible while I fooled around with my settings.  I would have loved to have her looking at me, but you take what you can get right?

Settings: 50 mm lens, ISO 200, f 4.5, 1/125

Image #2: Jessica out in our front yard.  Sun is to camera left.  She was standing in full shade with dappled light behind her.  I feel like she metered ok, but I really blew out my sky.  I used spot metering and BBF.  

Settings: ISO 100, f3.2, 1/60.  

Image #3: Another image of Jessica taken in backyard with sun behind her.  I still feel this is a bit cool, but I wanted to show it in comparison to photo above.  Settings: ISO 100, 3.2, 1/200

Image #4: Just for fun, I was trying to capture the basketball going through the net and freeze motion.  Settings: ISO 400, 3.5, 1/1250
I was squatting underneath the goal, so I had to scramble to get out the way of the ball so that it didn't hit me or worse yet my camera.  I'm sure it was rather comical to watch!

52 Week Challenge: Week 4

Wow, time is flying by.....  
The theme for this week's challenge is "Bokeh".  Who doesn't love some dreamy bokeh?  We had extremely wet and dreary weather all week, so I was forced to try and get creative inside.  I resorted to  the piano because my kids are sick of me practicing on them.  I have to say......this was a metering nightmare for a novice with the black and white keys.  I think I took about 50 shots of the piano!  Who knew getting a decent shot of the piano would be so time consuming and I'm still not real happy with it.  I feel like the WB is off a bit, but this shot was taken in the evening with AWB.  Settings: 50 mm lens, ISO 3200, 1.8, 1/100.

Metering Assignment

We had an assignment to meter to find our family member's "sweet spot" on the camera's meter.  We also implemented BBF (back button focus) as well.

I also have to say, my subjects were not too willing (with the exception of my easy going husband).  It was just an extremely busy weekend with two basketball games, church retreat and an overdue shopping trip to Sam's club.  So I have to be honest, I don't feel like I've been able to give this lesson as much attention as I would have liked to, but it is due today! TODAY....yikes!

The composition is horrible as well, but I was really just trying to accomplish the goal of the assignment.

Photo #1: Taken inside my living room on Saturday night.  I had to really bump up my ISO to even get it to meter to "0" on the 12.5% grey card.
ISO 4000, f2.5, 1/80 AWB
I know it has been recommended to not dip below 1/100 SS, but I knew my subject was pretty still and I was working with horrible lighting!

Her skin metered +1/3

Photo #2: Taken outside, full sun
Settings: AWB, ISO 200, f3.5, 1/1250
His skin metered -1/3 to -2/3

Photo #3: Taken outside, full sun
Settings: AWB, ISO 200, f4.0, 1/1250
His skin metered +1/3

52 Weekly Challenge: Week 3

The theme this week was "food".  Inspiration just didn't strike me this week.  I just didn't cook anything that seemed really photograph worthy.  I mean how exciting are leftovers anyway?  Soooo....with the week drawing near I fixed Emily's favorite ice cream: mint chocolate chip with chocolate syrup drizzled on it.  She was very happy to wait and let me photograph it before devouring it as her afternoon snack.  :)

White Balance

I seriously need some help with white balance.  All of my indoor shots have that nice yellow glow.

Working through the exercises...I grabbed a sugar and creamer from kitchen and went to my half bath which has some funky lighting from my chandelier.

Shot #1: AWB

Shot #2: WB setting on tungsten...yuck!

Shot #3: CWB