Attempt at Aperture

Last Saturday, I had the privilege of taking a photography workshop led by my friend and professional photographer Noemi Hedrick.noemiphotography.com.  I had an absolute blast.  It was all day long and so much fun.  I learned amazing things about my camera, how to position clients for a professional shoot, and what steps I need to go through to start up my own photography business.  I walked away with an increased knowledge in aperture, ISO and shutter speed.  I am having a blast taking photo's of the kids using my new settings.

I am really working on my Av setting which is a semi-automatic mode.  I am in charge of adjusting my aperture value and the camera takes care of my ISO and shutter speed.  The aperture is the setting that is in charge of how "wide open" your lens is.  The lower the aperture value the more open the lens is...generally speaking.  So, I like to shoot close ups of the kids and have the backgrounds blur...a lower aperture value will increase the likelihood that my backgrounds are blurred. 

I also want to get a program for editing my photo's.  The above pictures have not been edited in any program.  These next two photos have been edited in our Window's Live editing program.  I am definitely inexperienced in editing and was just trying to add a little warmth and contrast to my photo's.  Bria also has a huge bruise on her head so I was able to "retouch" the photo's and remove the bruise.  Unfortunately, I did not save the original photo of the two below to show a before and after but oh well.  I am pretty sure that if I go back into the program it will let me revert to the original..I think :) 

I like the way this picture turned out.  She did put on lipstick so I didn't do anything artsy there...it was just her beautiful lips enhanced by some red :)

This picture turned out a little "bright" or overexposed looking...I think.  What do you think?  Noemi told us that we should  look at skin tone to be sure that it is true and not some fake looking tone.  I have been looking at a lot of photo's and I can easily pick out skin tones that appear too blue, red, green or yellow.  This one looks just too bright or something.

Anyways, I will be posting some of the photographs that I took the day of the workshop soon.  We were able to shoot at an outdoor location and we shot a family and also a couple.  It was a ton of fun watching Noemi position the clients, encourage them, get them comfortable and let them know that their pictures were turning out great.  She has so much confidence while shooting that it is totally inspiring.  I hope to be that confident as a photographer one day. 

So, I am trying to take pictures every day using my new settings.  I am dabbling with full on Manual mode...which is interesting, frustrating, interesting and frustrating!  I would love to take photographs of you, your family, your dog or your child to practice...all of this will be free of course and I will give you all of your pictures.  Let me know if you would be interested in allowing me to practice practice practice on you :)