What do you see?

Yesterday Marc and I went to the Tidal Basin after work...it was cold but with the weather we're having I wasn't sure if we'd get to see the blossom again (and Marc has never seen the full effect before). So we went...sniffles and cough and all :)  I played with the camera of course and timing and framing.

 Then, today we took a fieldtrip with our intro to digital photography...to Capital Hill. At first, I was kind of like, "why am I doing this right now? I just took a lot of pics yesterday and I'm tired and I'm sick (not really but these allergies are kicking my butt)." It's true, yesterday I took a lot of pics at the Tidal Basin of the Cherry Blossoms...but my professor says, "if you're not taking photos, you're not a photographer and you're not learning."  So, I stuck it out after an hour and a half in the car due to traffic and started shooting. I learned first that I'm an exposure freak! I love over-exposure and saturating a picture!  I love love love it!! I'm sure eventually I'll go back to black and white being my favorite but right now, I'm a saturation and exposure fanatic.

I love a good shot of one subject with a shallow depth of field!  This picture uses both a shallow depth of field and repetition. I was able to focus on the first tulip and therefore blur the front leaf and the background.

See the next two pictures. I was changing the shutter speed on this. I wanted to capture the water at two different "speeds."  

Jackie is framed here. And she's a prime example of using triangles...the iron gate and her stance are perfect.

This came out really nice because the light and shadows are behind our subject and not on her face.

National Cathedral

So today I went to the National Cathedral. It is truly huge and gorgeous! And the day was beautiful....too bad I'm sick and didn't spend nearly the time I should have on exposure and practicing techniques. Some of them I really liked and others, they're okay and still others, way over-exposed. Ugh...wish I knew what I was doing all the time :)

just playing with the camera

So I live in a house with cats and flowers. I love to take pictures of both of them!

The beginning of a fun journey :)

For years I loved taking pictures. I took them of family and friends of buildings and wildlife. I just loved taking them...and felt I had an eye for it. So I'm trying to begin doing something about it.

I'm not sure yet if I want to be "professional" but I know I want to learn and do more. So first step was taking the new camera (Rebel T2i) out of the box and putting it together :)  I managed to do it successfully. But more than putting it together, I wanted to learn more about the camera and how to use it, so I signed up for classes: introduction to digital photography and intermediate digital photography.  In two weeks we go on a field trip to "practice" and I can't wait for that either. Following intermediate I'm going to look into composition :)  I must say I love every minute I'm in class!

Of course you won't see much in terms of editing because I don't have the software yet, but I think it's important to get down what I'm seeing first...as in what you will be seeing. I want to make sure I'm capturing the image (or light) the way I want it to actually look. Then later I'll buy the software and more tools and start really playing with images.  

Places I've never been and people I love to see, will be most of my subjects but I'm also hoping to start working with Operation love.  OpLove supports U.S. Military families by offering special sessions with a patriotic edge during their enlistment, focusing on deployments– before and more importantly, after, at their reunion when the deployment has terminated and the soldier is safely home– usually in an airport. In order to do OpLove though, I have to have a blog or professional website.

So here goes...this is my photo blog :)  Pictures to start coming soon and when they do I hope you will give me your feedback - both good and bad/constructive :)!