Some Photography Practice

I've been trying to be a "light-hunter" like I learned in my Joy-ography Class. Here are some of my practicing pictures. I think I am getting a little better. What do you think?
(I love how her eyelashes look)


This one is maybe a little over-exposed, but I still like how it turned out.

This is totally a Jill picture smile. She is thinking about how she would rather be doing something else than taking a picture.

You will notice that there are no pictures of Elliot. This is not from lack of trying. That boy will not hold still long enough for me to set up a shot. All of my pictures are of the back of his head! I'll get faster though, and maybe he'll slow down a little!

Joyography Class

Today was the day of my photography class. (Thank you so much to all of you who voted for me.) I have to admit, I really don't know anything about taking pictures. Alls I know is, I don't like the way mine look. The pictures I have of my children don't match the way I see them in real life (or maybe just in my mind).

So I felt a little foolish at first, cause I didn't know the first thing about operating my camera. Seriously, I had to keep raising my hand asking for help. The teachers, Megan and Marisa, said that I must never used auto mode again, that I must always use manual. Well, I had to raise my hand and ask "how do I turn my camera to manual?"

(This is embarrasing but I am going to do it anyway.) Here are the first few pictures I took:
I know. Bad, right. But it's okay, because after spending the day learning about capturing light and what aperature, shutter speed, and ISO do...I think I made some improvements:

Compare the following picture with the previous one. I do think I improved at least a little.

Here is a little series of pictures where you can see that I am trying to capture more light. I took six pictures of this ornament, here are the 1st,
3rd,


& 6th.

Although I didn't have quite enough light on this cute little gal, I did like the composition.
Two outside pictures. It was hard for me to figure out all the settings inside. Outside was a little easier because there was so much more light. I like how she is kindof curved into an s shape
It took me a long time of playing with focus and stuff to figure out how to shoot this bird. But I finally got a picture that I like. Nice thing about still lifes, they don't wiggle around and change positions while you are trying to master your camera! :)
This picture is not amazing, but I did like the composition, if you notice in the background there is a ton of crazy stuff. That's what the whole Red Star Mill in American Fork was like. Just all kinds of weird, old, interesting, cool stuff. (I bought a painting for my bedroom. I found it in an antique bathtub.)Even though this little boy isn't perfectly posed, I was happy that I got tons of glowy light and nice bright colors.

I took 253 photos (until my battery died). I only liked about 20 of them, most of which were in the last 100. So I have a long way to go, but I think I improved quite a bit in one day. I can't wait to practice more tomorrow morning!

I want to be the Weiner!

I have two friends whose blogs I drool over. They are both AMAZING photographers. But you don't have to take my word for it, check them out yourselves at:

http://meganknorpp.blogspot.com/

and

http://whimsicalconcoctions.blogspot.com/
or
http://moondoggiephotography.blogspot.com/

Bring your bibs, cause you'll be drooling too! I promise.

Anyway, they have started a new photography class and I really, really want to go! And they are giving a way a scholarship, which I really, really want to win. In the immortal, whiney words of (What About) Bob, "Gimme, gimme, gimme! I need, I need, I need!"

You might want to go to their workshop too. You can learn more about it, and vote for me to be the scholarship winner by going to:

http://joy-ography.blogspot.com/2010/01/joyography-workshop-scholarship.html

Just in case you need more incentive to vote for me, here is a picture I recently took:


You don't want my children to grow up thinking that's how they look, do you?!?

That's what I thought! Now go to their website and check it out. (Don't forget to mention how needy and deserving I am!)

Pretty, pretty, please with sugar on top!
Jamie