Lindsey's Photoshoot

Turning 30 is Sweet!

That's the theme of my friend Lindsey's 30th birthday. Since she is turning 30, she decided to do something fun for herself and have a fun photo shoot. We met on Sunday afternoon to get some shots. She wanted a vintage look to the photos. There were a lot of fun ones, but time doesn't allow me to post them quite yet. For now, here's a teaser!

Learning to Ride

My nephew Aidan is learning how to ride a bike! He's so excited.

Photography Challenges and Class Submissions

I posted this photo awhile ago, but I'm reposting it to take part in today's Simplicity photography challenge: Flowers.

I'm also submitting one of my favorites to the Aspire photography challenge: Lovely.

And now for this week's class submissions. Last week in class we discussed flash techniques and ISO. Our assignment was to experiment with different types of flash and to shoot in an ISO mode we'd never shot with before. Here we go:

My friend Beth, who is also taking the class, got together with me to practice. This photograph was taken using fill flash and a diffuser. She was positioned turned sideways with her back toward the sun to give direction to the light and shadows and fill flash was used to remove excessive shadowing from her face.

I posted this one a couple of days ago, also, but it was taken with fill flash. My family was positioned where they were backlit by the sun and fill flash was used to remove shadows from their faces. I also practiced with metering on this photo. I believe I took a meter reading off my hand to set the exposure for this shot.

This photo was taken in the evening at home after I had washed the freshly-picked apples and getting ready to peel and slice them for freezing. I used bounce flash with a mirror, bouncing the light off the ceiling to give a more even and natural looking lighting.

Lastly, my ISO picture. I took this with 3200 ISO, shooting inside at AWANA Sunday evening. This kid is adorable, but high energy, so I had to have a relatively high shutter speed to capture him clearly. I also used a diffuser on my flash to even out the lighting.

And just because I want to, here's another photo...this one taken by my husband. Isn't it nice? That's another picture of my fall table centerpiece. I'm diggin' the burlap.

Class Submissions

My composition submissions for this week. We'll discuss them tonight in class.

Framing

Thirds; close ups; focusing

Thirds; close-ups; color; focusing

Framing

Portraits

Well, after last week's photography class, we were given an assignment to come up with four pictures illustrating composition. Since I've had virtually no practice with portraits, I asked my sister to let me practice on her and my cute eight-year-old nephew. I came up with a couple that I liked. Later, I'll share my four submissions, but for now I'm just going to share my favorites from those portraits.

People and Pets

I haven't had much experience with photographing people and pets, and that's one thing I hope to learn how to do in the photography class. Here are a few shots I've taken when practicing with shallow aperture and a diffuser filter.