Picture Pretty

Photo Worthy

April 24, 2012
By

When I first got my fancy new camera I was all about practicing with it and taking 5823 photos of my dog. Over time I’ve gotten a little bit better with the actual photos but a little worse about remembering to toss the camera into my bag when I’m heading someplace photo worthy. Case in point, I’ve been telling myself for three weeks to take my camera with me to work to capture some gorgeous flowering trees around my office. I have yet to get myself, my briefcase and my camera in the car with me.

While I’m definitely still a total amateur I’m having fun and I think that slowly my photos are getting better. Right now my biggest problem is focus- I have way too many photos coming up out of focus and it is definitely user error not the camera. Ah well, we all have things we need to practice. In the meantime, here are some of my (better) recent shots:

 

We have Guy Fieri, a Magnolia Bakery cupcake, my dog (SORRY I’M NOT SORRY), my friend Elizabeth’s sweet son Colin who I am madly in love with, my cousin’s sweet daughter Miss A who I am madly in love with, and a fun shot of flowers taken with my Mom’s new lens that I’m coveting. All in all some decent shots but of course, I could use lots (and lots) of practice.

So in summary: photos are getting better, subjects are becoming more varied and I need to work on focusing better. Pointers, tips, and suggestions welcome.

The Obvious Answer

December 9, 2011
By

Ever since I got my new camera I have made a serious effort to use it, learn about it and take nice(r) photos. This means that sometimes I come home and find a gem or two on my memory card, but it also means I delete a lot of photos. With Christmas decor & lights everywhere I’ve been attempting to teach myself to take good holiday shots, but a photo of our entire Christmas tree was eluding me. Try as I might, as much as I fiddled, it was wrong. Over exposed, blurry, only part of the tree, too zoomed in, bad lighting, under exposed. The list goes on and on and there are only so many sins you can conceal with photo editing. Nothing can really salvage a mediocre shot.

Enter my new favorite hobby, Pinterest. Sometimes Pinterest provides me with eye candy but this time it provided me with the obvious photo tutorial on how to take photos of the Christmas tree. The directions were painfully obvious: use a tripod you idiot. Slow your shutter speed down. DUH.

 

Source: photobyemilieimprove.blogspot.com via Daisy on Pinterest

 

 

The “how to” on photographing your Christmas tree was laughably simple, but I’d gotten so caught up in other numbers (aperture, white balance, ISO, oh my!) I’d forgotten to go back to the basics. Hold the camera really still and let the shutter move slowly to really capture the light. So I set up my trusty old tripod and started. I had a few definite bombs….

…like when I bumped my tripod…

….or set the shutter a little too slow….

(Radioactive tree, ahoy!)

But then, after trial and error, I finally captured our 2011 tree for posterity:

 

Both shots taken with a 50mm lens and tripod. ISO 100, Aperture f2.2, Shutter 1/2, Exposure Compensation 0.

Yes, I can crop it and adjust it, and it would be better if I completely moved our couches out of the way, but I finally snapped a shot where the lights glowed the right way and the ornaments twinkled. If I was really being honest I would redecorate the tree and fix the dark spots where there are obviously not enough twinkle lights….and this weekend I might try to move some furniture and get a artsy shot but as far as remembering the 2011 family tree- I finally got it. Because lets face it, this was not going to be awesome:

I mean, I think you could get a sunburn from that.

Sunday Funday

August 22, 2011
By

While most of Chicago chose to use Sunday morning to do normal things like sleep in, go to church or attend the Air and Water show, I decided to break in the day with a 70 mile bike ride. Yes, you read that right, SEVENTY miles. And it wasn’t even the highlight of the day. After I got home (many, many, many hours later) I headed out with B to take 30ish of our closest friends sailing. It was a gorgeous night, and since I like everything to be all about me, I started it off by promptly watching my iPhone slide off the boat and into Lake Michigan.

Yeah. I thought riding my bike 70 miles sucked, but it turns out watching your phone spiral into the drink is worse.

I won’t lie, having our friend Tom dive down and find it was pretty spectacular especially since my directions regarding where it fell resembled hand flapping and general pointing in all directions. Sadly the phone is not remotely considering turning on, so I’m giving it a good soak in some dry rice to see if I can get a glimmer of something out of it. We shall see.

After all that excitement, we went sailing. Along for our three hour tour were many friends including the Namby Pamby, Kristabella, and Judgy Amie. We were treated to some wild sailing (including a few spectacular jibes that had all of us lying flat on the top of the boat so we didn’t get decked by moving parts) and splashing (seriously, I though we ordered a dry sail?) but then…the views. Oh the views.

 

What? I count too.

Ok, maybe not. But this does.

 

 

This is the face of someone contemplating how much this little “dropping of the phone” mistake is going to cost:

Hint: one million dollars.

Give or take.

 

What I Need Is a Captive Audience…

August 16, 2011
By

…but I suppose my blog is the next best thing. Look! I got a new camera! Let me show you some mediocre un-touched photos that I took last night when I was fiddling around with it. First off, for any newcomers, I have a dog! I suspect he will get very sick of me taking his photo, just like you will get sick of me showing you photos of him. (Hush. Don’t even say what you were going to say about already being sick of photos of him.)

I like to think my dog is photogenic. As it turns out, he only turns on the charm when my family members take his photo. For me…nothing.

So then I took a photo of my dinner. Nothing more exciting than photos of things other people ate!

Yeah. It just looks like food. Slightly better than iPhone photo food, but food none the less. (Zucchini angel hair pancake with marinara sauce for those wondering)

We took a long walk last night and I snapped a few photos in a park, just to mess around with a few settings. Look! Park benches!

 

And with those 3 photos, of the 200 I took (and deleted) this concludes my first installation of Photos I Took With A Real Camera. I promise to get better. Eventually.

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