make me happy

I don't sit down to write tonight with some profound insight or inspiration.  What I do have are some pics.  I'm proud of these pics for a couple reasons.  I also self-critiqued them and know what I would like to change and how to change it for the next life shots.  Life shots?  Is that what I want to call them?  You know, the shots that are not for a shoot and not for art.  Shots that chronicle your own family and family's life events.  Life shots.  I'll have to let that roll on my tongue and see if it sticks. 

Enough already.  My Boys.

My little Indiana Jones
55 mm 1/200 sec. ISO 100 f/5.6 A-priority w/Flash
Adjusted Levels in post-processing

Although I love this pic because of the subject, I'm not completely fond of the composition.  The little man moves doesn't really slow down much so next time it might be beneficial to back up or zoom out. 



I do love this pic
55 mm 1/125 sec. ISO 110 f/5.6 NoFlash
Again, only Levels adjusted 

I must say, I'm in so much love with this pic.  I don't know that I would change anything.  It is perfect in my opinion. 

This mini-maze made him so happy.
55 mm 1/125 sec. ISO 110 f/5.6 NoFlash
Obvious BW in post processing.  Also some contrast adjustment.

 I was having issues with my auto-focus.  I'm still not sure I got it corrected but I'm working on figuring it out and fixing it.  I also think I want to revisit this pic in it's BW version and highlight him in someway, maybe some vignetting. 

Overall, I'm happy.  Happy that I tried.  Happy that I played.  Happy that I succeeded with some good (at least one) shots. 




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M is for Manual

We met up with some friends of mine last night.  Couple of people who also have an interest in photography.  Along with knitting/fiber and cooking; photography is one of those artistic loves that has followed me through the years.  As we sat there chatting about photo related topics I realized I had lost something.  I had lost my ability to speak photography.  I realized that I theoretically knew what I meant but not how to form those thoughts into words to explain what I meant as it related to photography. 

Anyway, I also realized that a lot of my photos have been very, shall we say "point and shoot" esque.  Not at all what a photographer is trying to accomplish. 

Where does this leave me? I have this list of things I want to start doing when we finish moving.  Couch to 5k, plant a garden, cook "week in a day" meals, and so forth.  I'm also gonna add something else to the list but this my friends will be started ASAP.  Like today.  Get more familiar with my lovely D60 and shoot.  I made this effort in the past and previously I did learn some new things.  It appears it's time to get motivated again. 

My goal, take pics that can be posted/used/published SOOC (straight out of camera) or at least with very little post processing.  Again, I've said this all before and much of this is just a playback but with different words.  But I need to proclaim it again for myself. 

I do have a challenge.  I still have a film mindset.  It's hard for me to get past the limited frames of film.  It's hard for me to just shoot.  Am I alone in this? 

Also, although my friends did a great job tyring to persuade me, I will not be shooting in RAW.  Here is a great explanation why.  I will however take Mrs. Pioneer Woman's advice and use the RAW editor which I'm gonna get the Husby to re-install tomorrow. 

I'm also getting myself a 50mm 1.4 (maybe 1.8) lens.  They are not that expensive and my current lens will only go to 4.2.  This is not nearly as low as I like.  It just doesn't give  me the depth of field control that I need so I'll be purchasing one that does. 

There will be no pics with this post.  I don't like to post without a pic but in this case there is just nothing that works.  But I'll have some pics in the coming week that will hopefully tickle my inner photographers sweet spot.  although that statement read kinda dirty, it's not so get your head of the gutter.