Photography Class

So my beautiful wife signed me up for photography classes as part of my Christmas gift this year and I had the first class this last Wednesday.  I have to say - I'm pretty excited.  I've been geeking out about photography for the past 15 months (since I got my camera) reading blogs, checking out all the equipment I would like to buy, etc.  The first class was about what I had expected a beginner's class would be.  She covered the basics of a DSLR camera and got a feel for what everyone expected out of the class, but some of the topics that she said we would be discussing are exactly what I am wanting.  Sections on lighting and composition, flashes, RAW vs JPEG.  For our first class she told us she wanted us to use some of the other setting on our camera.  I have been primarily Manual ever since I started reading the aforementioned blogs and they said the only way to really learn the basics is to use Manual.

Anyway, I went out last night with Elena and decided to use the Program setting.  I think I really like it for some basic photography.  Benefits of Program would be that it is almost all Auto.  I don't have to worry about shutter speed or aperture.  I only worry about ISO and white balance.  A downfall would be that Program mode would not be good for action shots of Elena (since that is how she rolls right now.)  =)  These pictures were taken at my parent's house with my dad's new Canon T3i (I'm a little jealous.)

Dead of Winter

I've always been taken by the photos taken in the dead of winter that have that dreary and desolate feel to them.  I'm not sure I can explain why I find them so interesting but there's just something about them.  There is one particular picture that I have hanging in my living room that truly exemplifies that feeling, it is called Winter Serenity by William Neill.  When I first got the picture I thought I was buying a B&W picture.  It wasn't until I got the picture home and had my face 3 inches from the picture while hanging it that I saw the faint colors of the cliffs and trees.  It is just a remarkable picture that I am continually amazed by every time I look at it.  The picture I've posted below is a picture of a bridge on a running trail north of where I live.  I was particularly taken at the supporting structure (although admittedly I didn't realize at the time just how poor the bracing looked.  Maybe because I was freezing my tail off.)  Anyway when I got the pictures home and downloaded, this was definitely the picture that stood out to me.

iPhone camera

I'm a bit of a tech geek and one of the things I really wanted when my old phone contract ran out was the new iPhone 4S.  I had read about the camera and that was definitely something I wanted to have with me.  I had tried multiple times (unsuccessfully) with my old phone to get pictures of our daughter and it was just too frustrating.  It took my old phone about 5 seconds to bring up the camera app and then another 2-3 seconds to actual take the photo.  Now if you know anything about kids, 8 seconds is enough time to miss 3-4 pictures let alone the original picture you wanted.  So I was pretty pumped about my new iPhone.  Well I can say without a doubt that this camera is great.  I had considered buying a P&S camera just to carry around when I didn't want my DSLR but now with my iPhone, the P&S seems completely unnecessary.  I haven't really gotten any great pictures of  Elena but that isn't the phone's fault (she abandon's whatever she's doing and heads straight for me whenever she see's me pull out my phone) but I did get a great shot on the golf course.  Here it is before and after post processing.

Not too shabby for a camera phone!

Simpson College

One of the blogs I follow DigitalPhotographySchool said in one of their posts here that you should take a camera on a walk and just pick a spot to take photos and really try and make a good picture out of what would apparently be pretty benign.  So I took our dog Kati out for a walk and tried to see what I could come up with.  For post processing I use Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2.

ISO troubles

So I have just recently figured out how ISO affects photos.  The higher the ISO (1600 is the highest my camera goes) the noisier (grainy) the picture.  Since I have so far been a photographer that has been learning on-the-fly, I hadn't realized that ISO was what was causing all that noise in my photos.  I had only realized that having the ISO up had allowed me to take photos at a lower aperture.  Both of those of course were helping me get low light pictures in my house.  I'm sure if I were to upgrade my camera (not an option since mine is only 1 year old) then I would get better noise reduction from a better sensor but now I'll just have to figure out how to get the photo I want in another way.  Maybe I'll try some reflectors to get more natural light into the room....we'll have to see if I can figure that part out.

First blog post

I've decided to start blogging and posting some of my favorite photos here.  I don't know if this will end up going anywhere or dying in a few months/years but I guess if I don't start it will never happen.

Here's a little bit about me.  I have a beautiful wife (Kim) and an equally beautiful daughter (Elena) and we have a little dog named Kati (a Peke-poo.)

I got my camera specifically to take pictures of Elena and I have decided that I really enjoy photography and would like to see where it goes.

The first photo is just the family picture I took about a month ago.