Thursday, May 21, 2009

Memorial Day Weekend

Well, I finally have a nice little vacation from work and life. It's nice to get away even if it's just for a day or two. Looks like the weather in VA (tip of the peninsula) will be perfect for the weekend. Hopefully I'll have some good pictures to post when I return. Have a safe and happy memorial day weekend!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Pro photo session and not so pro photo session

So yesterday we had an appointment with a pro photographer for our engagement pictures. First off, we got there right on time, which never happens with us! This photographer is very nice and down to earth. They are a family run business and from everything I've seen have great portraits. At least we hope so as we have already booked them for our wedding! Now I am what I consider an amateur photographer. I really enjoy taking pictures of things (not so much people). So going into this I know a little bit about what's going to happen and the type of shots I expect to see. The weather was great, perfect temp around 75 degrees and overcast (although we each felt a raindrop at some point.) But it held off nicely and the few pictures I got to see on the LCD screen looked great. Now as I got out of the car at the park I realized my glasses would start tinting soon. I've never really thought of this before as I'm not normally in the photograph and when I am my glasses are not an issue. But I suppose engagement pictures would not look great with sunglasses on?!? So after a few shots they tinted and the photographer had me take them off. That's fine we'll see how they look, I'm so used to having my glasses on it may look a little weird. I don't recall ever going to an actual photographer as apposed to just going to a portrait studio (sears, jc pennys, or even a locally owned). I recently read an article about people that want to get photographed that can't loosen up and relax. I felt like this, I know that I wanted to be there taking the pictures and I was enjoying the experience but it was hard for me to really relax. I'm not used to posing for pictures and when I have to pose for people I really don't know its unnerving. Even those these people were very nice and I felt really relaxed with them talking in the studio when it came to taking pictures I just don't know how to be relaxed. Also, she kept having to tell us to smile. It's just not natural for us to smile that much. The whole session was about an hour, and I'm very anxious to see the results. We never dress up for anything and it was a nice change of pace. Not to mention we both worry about most things, so it was a great relief to finally have that out of the way. The wedding is coming up quick, just over a month to go and so far everything is coming together pretty well. It will be a great relief when it's done.
Now at the dance recital for my niece I realized that even with a great zoom on the Fujifilm S8100f Superzoom point and shoot camera I bought last summer it doesn't do well in low light. For some reason when schools and stuff put on events like this they really don't think of the average joe taking pictures and they put the lighting down to the minimum. I have a few good shots but it's very frustrating to have to pump up the flash power all the way and the ISO (I won't go over 800). I can't wait till I can get my DSLR in the late fall, I should be able to get better shots with it. Everyone says it doesn't matter the equipment you have, which for the most part I believe is true. But when you can't control all the elements of the shot it really does help to have nicer equipment. Last week we went to my daughters chorus recital and it was about the same situation. It's still better than before with my 4x zoom Canon A510. I'll try to put a few images of the recital up on my flickr soon.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

It's been a while...

Well it's really has been a while since I set this up. As I said in my first post I really don't have time to do this sort of thing, but I'm going to try to stop wasting some of my time and be a little more productive. We'll see how that goes! Today I was faced with an issue as I went to a friend's child's birthday. Right before I left my batteries for my main camera died! So I had to use my old Canon A510. I think I still got some decent shots, and I'm sure I will put them up on flickr soon.