Boots

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Originally uploaded by HDC Photography

Not much to say, just the Princess doing what she does best.

The last leaf

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Originally uploaded by HDC Photography

First, about what's going on. October got crazy insane with school projects, clinicals, and life.

Then the computer got a virus that required us to reinstall windows. Of course, I was in the middle of processing some gorgeous birth shots that I really wish I could share with you. Lots of stress, crossing fingers, and praying for my most important files to be saved and most of them were. As you can see, the watermark has changed again because it was one of the files lost.

Things are slowing down slightly on the school front and I need to looking for some more balance in my life instead of stress at every turn.

As for the photo, I don't have my settings (bad, bad me) but this was taken about 4 pm, probably around f2.something, ap priority, with my 50 mm lens.

Fall means so much to me, and this year I'm finding it symbolic of so many things going on. It ends a season but it's crisp, refreshing, and energizing if you can get up to going out and enjoying it.

Meet Fred

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Originally uploaded by HDC Photography

Yes, it's been a while but school is starting back up, we're going to be heading into a lot of testing with The Scientist, and I'm busy losing weight so expect to be less and less of me (literally)

Here is Fred, a moth The Investigator latched onto over the weekend. She carried him around for hours and he finally decided to leave yesterday.

Practicing with sun flare

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Originally uploaded by HDC Photography

For the time being I'm taking people out of my sun flare pictures. I've come close a couple of times but never nailed it. I closed my ap way down for this one making the streams of light sharp instead of blurs of light.

Gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day!

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Originally uploaded by HDC Photography

I'm amazed at how fast the sunflowers are changing, it was worth the wait of them not doing anything other than growing up, and then having buds for what seemed like forever.

f/8.0, SS 1/500, ISO 200, 95 mm (55-200 mm lens), fill flashed used at 1/16th power

Woot!

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Originally uploaded by HDC Photography

I tried to use fill flash to not blow out the sky. I only have a pop up flash (yes, an SB is on the short list) for shooting outside. I turned it down to 1/8th power and got this.

f/7.1, SS 1/500, ISO 200, 55-200 mm lens (yes, my baby got sent back)

"Learning To See Creatively" exercise

I picked up a couple of Bryan Peterson's books from Amazon and honestly, I wish I would have done it earlier in the summer so I could have been setting the information in my mind by using it.

Here are my results from the first exercise (around page 16) I'm wishing I would have used my graycard to set my exposure, I was aperture priority from shooting in different light from earlier and just didn't think (never a good thing) I was just trying to get this finished before the shadows that were continuing to grow reached the trike. I also wish I would marked off my shooting points with chalk and measured them (yeah, I'm geeky that way)

Technical stuff. 105 mm lens (it goes home soon :( ) f/7.1, ISO 200, SS varied.

I didn't PP these at all. No RAW adjustments and I resized as a batch to be able to post. No USM, no watermark (yes, they are still mine) no anything other than the batch resize.

These were taken standing and getting progressively closer.









Kneeling (my poor knees, I should have gardening knees on)










On my belly, neighbors were watching me army crawl. I'd think they'd be use to this by now.









Standing on a step ladder (yes, I went above and beyond)









Observations

#1- A little change in perspective really changes the entire feel of the images.

#2- I debating about actually 'doing' the exercises or not. Do I really need to, the wonderful photographer that I am?

Well, I decided that as long as learning was my goal yes I did need to do them even if I did similar ones in classes before. I've got new equipment since then and the principles all still apply but if I feel my composition needs enough help that I'm buying a book (albeit one I've wanted for a long time) to help me with composition I better do what the book asks.

Which observation do I think is most important? Probably the second. For anyone who's read the book and not done the exercises they are quick and don't take as much time as I originally thought.