fireworks and sillouettes...

I tried taking photos of the fireworks and I actually just sat down my camera and enjoyed the moment of oooh's and ah's with the family. Here are my favorites from the evening...

And what did I learn, for one I want a tripod and remote and that it is ok to not capture 1000 images of exploding color because the images of my kids faces enjoying those fireworks will forever be engrained in my mind... If I could have only figured out how to snap shots of their faces under the glow of the fireworks... that is a must for next year.

finding the one...

One of my struggles in learning my camera is understanding all the jargon that goes with it. Aperature, FStop, ISO, White balance, it seems a bit daunting, but it is necessary to really set up

for the kind of shots I would like to get one day. In the meantime I set up the shots best I can

using Katrina's book as my guide. But when I need to tweak a photo I either go to Lightroom

and play with it or I apply actions from photoshop. My favorite actions right now are Florabella's Spring Sets I & II. I wanted to upload my favorite pics from recently and decided upon two that both use these actions, they use a layering of several actions, but I so loved the results on them both.

I was lucky in that the bottom photo captured sweet girls new baby teeth are showing, it had been so hard to capture them for a week or two and as I edited this shot I was just delighted to see them. These shots seem very posed to me, although the first one was just some play time at the park and the bottom one was playing in the front yard... What I hope to concentrate on this year is taking really good everyday shots, shots that include the scenery and help tell the story of the bigger picture...

And just because I thought it would be nice to compare the before and after... here is the before of my sons wish photo.... in my case actions saved the bleary photo.

shutter speed 1/250 fstop f/4.5 ISO200 Focal 73.0 shot on canon rebel xt

The best place to start is at the very beginning...

I have tried for 2 years to complete the photo 365 project. I did complete it last year but have missed so many days this year. But I committed to my self to learn more about my camera and to get better at capturing the everyday. So I share my journey here, the struggles of capturing too much, too little, not enough, filling my hard drive with 100 retakes just to get the one.. I love my friends analogy that says if you have a sports car would you drive it the same as you would, say a minivan... if you have a dslr, why are you using it like a point and shoot. Simply put, why am I not using my camera to its fullest potential? No reason, so this is where I start to harness the potential that photography has in store.
My favorite photography source right now is my friend Katrina. She shares her knowledge through tutorials at designerdigitals. I have learned so much about my camera and the basics of getting started.
Another of my favorite photographers is Teri from {as i see it}, and Myra blows me away with her ability to capture the everyday with such vision.
I am inviting some friends along this journey with me and you will find some posts from them from time to time. This journey to document the everyday is important to me as a mom, wife and just as someone who wants to leave behind a pictoral presense of this live I lived. Thanks for joining me on this journey.