Not much to show for a while

Well, I really haven't done a whole lot lately, my kids are ornery as usual about me taking their pictures.  Especially the baby!  I really wish she would just let me take a good picture of her for my wall!  Anyway, I did get a couple of pictures of my nephew yesterday when I was over there.  I guess I didn't check my settings when taking them, though because I had to do some work to fix the lighting and such on them.  I need to remember to check the settings right before taking the picture!  Anyway, I'm going to post SOOC (straight out of camera) and after editing, just to show.  

Photo shoots

This is going to be a long post since I haven't posted in a while.  I've done a couple of practice photo shoots recently of friends' families and my own kids.  I have some that I LOVE, and some that I was pretty disappointed with, but, overall, I think these have been great learning experiences.  My first photo shoot was of "M. Family".  Really, it was mostly for the kids.  I did the photo shoot and after getting home and looking at the pictures, I was kinda disappointed in myself for making some rather obvious mistakes, but again, these are things that I just have to get used to noticing.  My main problems here were 1. I was still having problems with my exposure, 2. I didn't pay close enough attention to the backgrounds, 3. Started the shoot too early.   Overall, the family was happy with what they got and I was happy with the practice and experience.  Here are a few shots from their family:

After doing "M. Family", I was so pleased with a one main pose, that I just had to try it on my own kids!  I went to a different location and tried it there, I was more pleased with my results because I tried to be more aware of my surroundings.  Though I did make a few mistakes, they weren't as big as before.  Here's the result:

Next was more recently, I had a shoot with the "D. Family".  This one I had the most success with, but again, made a few small mistakes.  But I felt much happier with the results.  Some of my mistakes were, my aperture wasn't opened wide enough, shutter speed was too slow, as the sun got lower, I cranked up my ISO too much (at the end, it was at 800) and made my photos too grainy.  But overall, I believe I did better with this family and, again, the family was happy with what they got.  Here's a few of those:

Kids portraits

I took the kiddos to the local park to try to get a good portrait of them.  My youngest never lets me get a good one.  Mainly because she won't look at me while outdoors.  If she does look at me, it's only for a second and she won't smile.  She loves outdoors, but she's too interested in other stuff while out there.  So I didn't get a good one of her (that I'm happy with).  I might just end up settling with an indoor portrait of her. 

So I did get one that I like with my two other kiddos, though.  My son (who normally blinks when I click the picture) did really well and I got a couple of good shots of him.  My daughter did great as well, but was sweaty, so I did another portrait the next day in our own yard.  I think they turned out well, though.

Not much to report

I haven't done much photography this week.  I'm hoping to get more going soon.  I did do a couple of shots of my little ones, though.  So here's one of them.

I'm hoping to get a good one of each kid separately soon, hopefully this week!  Will post when I do that.

Lights, Camera, Action!

I started really enjoying photography when my first child was born.  I wasn't able to do much at the time, so I took pictures of my daughter.  After each child was born, my desire to do more grew.  Now I believe is my time to shine!  Recently I got a Sony a230 DSLR with a 55mm 2.7 lens to help me in my growing knowledge and use of photography.
My next step is to start a more professional portfolio.  I created a portfolio of portraits that I have taken in the past and will continue adding to it as I do more photo shoots.  Other than that, I'm just working my way up to the top...hopefully.
Well, on to the pictures, I hope you enjoy the ride!  Here's a few of my past portraits to get this blog started.