Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Getting To Know You

Getting to know all about you....Getting to like you.....

Ok I'll stop singing now.

Here's what I know about myself- I may have creative ADD meaning I may go from project to project or medium to medium but i NEVER do more than one thing at a time.  If I have a project or deadline looming overhead, I'm almost paralyzed to do anything else until that thing is done and off my shoulders.  It is the main reason I had stopped taking custom orders years ago, I would find myself procrastinating to get an order done and wouldn't be able to do anything else until it got done. See the dilemma?

It's my own personal order out of chaos.
My mind goes like this-
Get the taxes done then I can-
Get the fatbook pages done then I can-
Work on the trades and when they're finished i can-
Ok you get the idea.
Well, I have been trying in the background to learn my camera and lens and all the nuances of both.
I had signed up for a class which i never did one thing for, sooo I decided right now with everything off my plate at the moment to finish the books I was reading and spend some time getting to know my camera better.

Our weeping cherry tree is in full bloom and I was very happy to see today that it survived the awful weather we had for the past few days without getting beat to pieces.  With the sun shining and the blue skies, it made for the perfect subject to work with.


I knew I was a better photographer and the camera was more capable (or the camera was better and the photographer more capable) than what the evidence of pictures was showing me.  I feel the fault was with relying solely on Auto.
I know the best way to learn something is just to do it. Play with the settings and dials and buttons until it gets really familiar and then try to strike a balance between the aperture, the ISO and shutter speed until you get the results you are looking for. Refer to the manual. Again. And again.

Really look at something. Really see.  Then frame it up in the camera.
Change direction,  perspective,  capture the light in different ways.

I have decided that choosing the ISO and shooting in aperture priority mode is what works best for me to give me the feeling I used to have shooting 35mm.


These pictures are as shot, no post processing with photoshop, that is another whole subject. 
I think if you get the fundamentals down of good photography, then photoshop is a wonderful tool to use for creative embellishment, but one thing at a time, remember?

5 comments:

  1. Laura, your pictures are so clear and vibrant they are jumping off my computer screen! Absolutely gorgeous! And I love cherry trees, especially the weeping cherries.
    I never did THE course either! Really. I think I did the 1st 2 weeks then life got in the way. I do need to spend more time with different settings as well. Just seeing your pictures is proof that there is a whole lot of beauty out there when you get out of Auto!

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  2. Stunning !!!! You know what you're doing no matter what the manual says...keep having fun...love to see your pix..love you, too...

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  3. Your photos are amazing! I'd love to get together with you and play since I think we have the same cameras.

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  4. I'm with Lori...we're going to have to get together and play with cameras. I would love to just go walking and capture some pretty things...and get more comfy with ISO. :)
    Jen

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  5. Oh the tree is stunning and so is the photography!!!

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