What I have learned...

Over the last few weeks several of my friends have graciously allowed me to take some photos of them and/or their family. It has been an invaluable experience for me and I have learned a lot. Here are some things I have learned...

#1 and #2...
Check my white balance. It's more important than I thought.

Also, my camera tends to over expose on aperture priority mode. I guess it's time for me to move to all manual settings.


Some creative poses work, others do not...


Maybe for a wedding party, but not for kids. And, I have to be really careful with my background and depth of field with this pose.

When they say "Don't take maternity shots straight on", they mean it.

When I did my research for the maternity shoot, I read over and over - "Take maternity shots from any angle except straight on". What did I do? Yep, took a shot from straight on.

This shot totally didn't work - lesson learned (and Jen, you didn't look like this - I promise!) .



I learned two lessons here as well. #1 notice the details, and because of #1, #2 a little photo editing is okay.

Here is the shot as it was taken...

It's sweet, but not perfect. Here I "removed" the extra fabric on the left and gave it a bit of a tweak with the lighting.

And finally (though I'm sure there is much more for me yet to learn), shooting next to a waterfall is beautiful, but bring something to get the attention of the kids so they look at me.