Yay!!! A Photography Class for Me!!!

J got me a nice Digital SLR Camera for Christmas last year and I have been interested in taking a class to get better at my picture taking skills. I am pretty darn excited that I was able to take the class. It was taught by a photographer out of Ogden named Veronica Reeve. She does awesome work and is a great teacher. After the first week though, I wanted to cry because I think I got worse than better. But through practicing a ton I "think" (think being the operative word here) have gotten better. Other than I think I ruined my kiddos. I think they will run in the other direction the next time I pull out my camera! Here are some of the pictures I took through out the class and then at the on-location photo shoot last Saturday!

Assignment Pictures - Week 1 Objective: Exposure - Apeture, Shutter Speed, ISO

The first ones are pretty bad - I couldn't get my exposure quite right. Shooting in Manual is a lot harder than one thinks! And trying to bribe/fight/try not to lose your patience while taking pictures of your own kids is HARDER!! They did not want to participate in the least bit. Let's just say I probably gained more grey hair and pulled out the non-grey hair that I had!

Assignment Pictures - Week 2 Objective: Composition w/Exposure
So after first week I was feeling a little bad since I think I got worse.  But things seemed to get better after the second week.  I started getting my exposure "closer" to being right and my pictures started becoming more vibrant in color and looking tons better.  But still a long ways to go...

Assignment Pictures - Week 3 & Photo Shoot Objective - Everything plus Lighting
The last week we had class and an on-location photo shoot and I was NERVOUS because my pictures weren't looking too hot.  They were getting better but I think I wanted it to happen over night and be great at it, but that's obviously not how it works for me.  I was still struggling with getting it to "click" in my head with the exposure and working with a grey card.  Practice, practice and more practice is what it is gonna take it get better.  The first hour of the photo shoot I was struggling because my 50mm f/1.8 lens is suppose to be an auto-focus but that feature on the lens (I found out) is not supported by my camera.  So on top of dealing with exposure, lighting and composition I got to deal with getting my manual focus right too!  But my 50mm is a better lens than what came with the camera so I had to just deal with in.  Some of the pictures turned out a little blurry. :(  The pictures that I took at the beginning of the shoot are first and then the pictures at the end were from the end of the shoot.  I think I got a little better by the end of the shoot.  The pictures turned out pleasantly better than I expected.  These shots are straight from the camera.  And I can just say that I LOVE MY KIDDOS so MUCH...but...it was nice not to have to fight or bribe to get a smile during the on-location photo shoot. The models were great and didn't complain one bit about how slow I was or how we had to take the same picture over and over again.

I absolutely LOVED the class.  It was so much fun and I learned a ton.  I am thankful I was able to go and even more thankful J chased the kids around.  I did miss a few of O's games which made her sad but it was good to take a few moments for myself and learn something new.  I will just have to keep practicing and practicing some more so I don't lose what I learned.  If I could just get my kids to let me practice on them....they run from the camera now...