Practice Practice Practice

Michelle - I loved your blog design so much I went to the same site..... hope you don't mind!

There is just so much I have to learn! I have spent the past week taking many photos with seamless paper. Learning new things every time I unroll it. I love the look of seamless in photos that are done right, so I'm sticking with it until I can do it!

It is so frustrating to just want to whip out the camera and take pics like I see them lol! So many variables, but every time I upload pics I learn a little bit more.

I have wanted to write the post for a few days, but didn't want to share my pics until I thought they were 'good'. But I have to just do it and see what people think and continue putting them up to see if I am improving. They are not always going to be good yet! In fact some of them I took made me seriously wonder if I can do this.

I did not follow what I set out to do last post. I am very focused on a few things right now. I will keep focusing on these things until I get it right. Even if it means editing the same pics over and over again!! (my kids are super sick of the camera)

Exposure...... learning to expose for the skin then balancing with the scene.

Skin tones..... getting it right

black and white conversions..... seem easy but are very complex, I want to learn the best ways to convert

setting up properly for the given light situation...... trickiest of them all!! Especially with white seamless. I had an awful time with that. Still learning how to edit them properly, the white came out more grey which drives me crazy!

and to STOP using actions lol! I want to learn to do it myself before relying on actions when I don't understand exactly what they're doing!! I love actions - but would prefer to see it done and be able to do it myself. Or to know when to use them!!!

So here are some practice pics..... poor Kade yes, she's naky but she's trying to dress herself which was super cute!

This was my first crack at it with the grey.

This is proving a point...... sharpening for web actions doesn't always work well.... case in point.....

And this if you can believe it is the white. I have edited it to make it white.... but can't get the hair quite right so those pics aren't up yet. I am still working on it!

These are some conversions focusing on skin on b&w

Here was another lesson..... I don't REALLY like higher ISO on the camera!!! A tad noisy and I don't want to pay for noiseware yet. I can get them pretty sharp with lower aps. Which I will do today for our practice shoot.

These were fun trying out my flash for fill.... another lesson - don't cut off people's arms lol!

This was my fav..... not following any exposure rules I'm learning but looks cool!

So there it is.... my latest and greatest. next week - more of the same . One day they're going to look good!