Timing Thyself

Summer is upon us and this right here is where you can find me most beautiful days (or even gloomy ones like tonight).

See... there I am.

Tonight I've been learning how to use the self-timer.  I love it and it's easy to use, but me thinks I prefer being behind the camera. O_o

Here I am again.

I've decided to follow the assignments given at Digital Photography School (DPS).  It will give me more of a focus rather than just randomly trying to decide what features of the camera I want to discover while really showing me how to become a photographer rather than a rebel without a clue.

This weeks assignment is black and white portraits.  Here's my entry:

This is my 5-year-old. He wasn't exactly thrilled to be my model. After I captured this shot, this is what I got:



No words

Lessons Learned

As with all new ventures, you learn lessons.  One highly important lesson I learned was to read the manual... even just a tad.  But I was just too excited to get started once the battery was fully charged.

Here I was working in the yard/garden on a beautiful day snapping away. I took some awesome shots of the freshly blooming roses, the garden decorations, a SNAKE (real one) and a really cool shot of my hard lemonade in a frozen mug with the blurred garden as a back drop.

Did I say I took awesome (downright gorgeous if I might say myself) shots?!  I couldn't wait to transfer to my computer to share with my family and friends on facebook.

Here's where the lesson was learned.  Oops, no card, but no worries. I unpacked the cord, attached it to the camera and my laptop and ... no pictures!  What?  How could that be?  My old point and shoot would save the shots on the camera if the card wasn't in.

Upon reviewing my manual I discovered how to set the camera so I can't release the shutter if there's no card and it even flashes "card" on screen.

Pfft!

Luckily, I did do a little CPP of the snakes:

My Rebel

Peace at Last

Back in the day, I owned a Canon Rebel film camera. I loved that camera, but unfortunately I lost it in the divorce.

Fast forward about 15 years and many point and shoot cameras later, I once again am the proud owner of a Canon Rebel T3. And it's not just your average camera, it's red which I hope reflects the attitude of my photos as I begin to emerge from taking pictures to becoming a photographer.

As with the film camera, I have no clue how to use this camera, but I love photography, real photography and not my usual CPP (cell phone photography).

The photo above is a raw image taken this past weekend at Spier Falls. Landscape photography is probably my first choice.  There's just something about making every day life pop.

I have so much to learn about my Rebel and what I can do with it. I want to share them here primarily to be able to look back at my progress.  Some day I'll try to enhance my photos with a photo editor, but for now I have enough on my plate to learn.

Here's my first manual focus shot once I got my new CRT3: