Black and white

I've been learning more post-processing techniques and decided to try my hand at converting to black and white. There's a real art to black and white, and I love the look when it is done well. My conversion has some strong blacks, but I think it turned out pretty well over all:

Wedding #1: I don't do weddings

I have always said I will not shoot weddings. First: I'm not good enough. And second: it's not the type of photography I'm interested in. But what was I going to do when my good friend Jamie asked me to photograph her wedding? They weren't going to hire a professional, so it was my pictures or nothing. Of course I said yes.

The lighting was tough. Really, really tough. We were in shade but it was a bright day, and a lot of the pictures had half sun/half shade in them so they were pretty contrasty. At one point, as I took a quick peek at the dark images on my camera screen, I was so worried that I was going to completely fail that I switched my camera to automatic and fired off about five shots in the middle of the wedding, just in case.

When I got home and started editing I found that, yes, there were some shots that were pure garbage. But there were also a lot that were pretty workable. I have a lot to learn still, although I'm happy to report that my shots were much better than the automatic ones (I was reminded why I never, ever use my on-camera flash!) so I guess that's progress, right?

Here is a scene from the wedding. Pretty dark and lots of noise, but at least the sky isn't completely blown out, and I do love the emotion:

Here's a shot after the wedding was over and I could choose where to put them:

I'm so happy for them! And now I can go back to saying no to weddings! ;)

Meet Miko

I can't believe I haven't updated this blog since May! How did that happen?! Well, here's a picture for you. Meet our new kitten, Miko:

Family photo session

I am happy to say that my second photo "job" (I say "job" because I don't charge anything) went much better than the first one. I actually checked my settings as I was shooting and wasn't nearly as nervous as I was the first time. A friend of mine wanted to do family photos with an urban look, so I scouted locations downtown. I found a nice brick wall that was in full shade and where they wouldn't be looking into the sun:

They were so much fun to work with! I let them be as goofy as they wanted, and their personalities really came through in some of the shots:

I still have a lot to learn--especially with posing people--but it was a fun afternoon. I can't wait for the next one!

Still loving the lens...

My new lens

I'm in love. I finally laid down the money for an L series lens, and…wow! It is a thing of beauty!

Oh, the wonders of nature!

We took Naomi to the zoo for the first time. It was a fabulous day for it, and we all had a wonderful time. For once, my favorite shot of the day didn't involve my daughter:

These little girls were so excited every time the sea lion zoomed up in front of them (he was swimming in a big vertical circle). There were so many people there that I couldn't get an angle with just the two girls, but I just love that hand sweeping up!