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.

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.

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.  :)

Assignment #1

I'm a complete nervous wreck.  Our assignment for the class was to take 4 pictures using full manual, shooting in jpeg only with a 50mm lens.  One was to be outside, using window light, inside (low light) and location of your choice.

I started taking photos in RAW format a few months ago, so this assignment has really been hard because I want to take them into LR and brighten them up or tweak the white balance.

I have to admit......I'm not so sure why I was so scared of manual.......for years.  Maybe it was being forced to do an assignment, but something just "clicked" excuse the pun while doing this exercise.  I have to say.......the instructor had a few short audio clips to listen to while setting up your shots.  WOW!!  It made me evaluate my surroundings and really help me make the connection between the exposure triangle.  Something that has eluded me for a long time.

Another thing I'm excited about is focus.......My images appear sharper than I recall in a long time.  I'm sure part of that has to do with working with a prime lens, but let me tell you I've been so discouraged with soft images for a long time.

So without more rambling here are my photos with their settings.  I'm anxious to receive feedback from the instructors and classmates.  I have purposely only looked at one person's work, and it was awesome.....didn't look like a beginner at all......so I was afraid if I looked at others I would never get the nerve to post!!!

1. Outside: Full sun, 50 mm lens, ISO 100, f2.0, 1/4000

This shot is also going to serve as my photo for the theme "UP" for the CM 52 week challenge.

2.  Window Light: 50 mm lens, ISO 2500, f1.8, 1/160

3.  Inside Light (low light):  50 mm lens, ISO 1000, f1.8, 1/2000

I really struggled with this one.  All of my inside shots looked really yellow or grey, so I'm anxious to learn more about white balance in the upcoming week.

4.  Location of choice: Outside late afternoon, Lens 50mm, ISO 400, f1.8, 1/1000

Caleb is playing basketball with little dribbler's for the first time this year.  This is so "him" right now. He is so into basketball wearing his absolute favorite sweatshirt from our summer Nebraska mission trip.  I'm loving that I was able to get him in sharp focus with the blurred background, but now that I've loaded it I'm not real happy with the shadows across his face.  So much to learn!!