Photography for Goofs 1

I’ ve mentioned before that I’m not entirely sure where this Blog Schmog came from or even where it will go “Cotton Eyed Joe!”  Uh oh, sorry!  Have I also mentioned that I often think in songs- the good the bad AND the ugly.  At any rate, this week I’ve had several people ask me what I do to get the pictures I take and if it’s my camera or some technique I have.  So begins the Photography for Goofs tutorial and let me remind you I’m NO photo genius!

My famous technique and my number one advice is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!  For each good picture I take there are at least three terrible takes of the same pic.  Sometimes I can even up that to 10-1, not in my favor.  What I’ve done since going digital (some of you might remember FILM cameras) is “just keep clicking, just keep clicking!”  Thanks Dori.

To illustrate…

I’m using “portrait” setting with a slower shutter speed so any movement is blurred…

“STOP MOVING Thing 1!”

That’s better…

Here is my favorite

The last two are pretty good, I can leave well enough alone or I can open with Photoshop Elements 6.0 and do some fancy dancy editing of which I have no idea what I’m doing!

Another amazing tool I’ve found is my camera’s manual!  Funny as it sounds the need to read every word occasionally comes in handy.  Most of the time it is a huge hindrance like the time I couldn’t make mac n’ cheese because I didn’t remember how much water to boil the noodles in.  Would it have been that much of a tragedy to boil noodles in 4 qts instead of 2 qts.  We all know that would have sufficed but I couldn’t wrap my brain around it and so I made quesadilla’s until I could find the directions!  Yeah, I’ve been known to be that bad of a cook!  Can you guess I’m a first born type A kind of gal?

I take all my pictures with a rinky little point and shoot camera.  Actually I really like it and for a mom on the go my dream camera is not practical and if I had one it would probably result in mass mutany or at least less picture taking.  Now that I think of it, that’s probably a sad testament that the Rebel is what my dreams are made of.  Sigh! Okay so that was extreme I’ll just revise that to say “the camera that I think I would really like to have someday but truly I don’t loose any sleep over.”   As it is my trusty little point and shoot Canon can hang on my arm and with a flick of my wrist I can grab that baby like a quick draw cowboy and “just start clicking, just start clicking.”  Oh boy, I’ve lost half of you now since I got that song stuck in your head.  I’m just terrible!

One more quick tip and then I’ve got to get my fanny off this computer.

Whenever possible shoot without the flash.  Now some hardcore photo pros like my friend Christina - ha, she is going to laugh that I called her “hardcore”- would possibly disagree but in the right lighting I seem to get the best results when I turn off the darn auto flash!

What’s the right lighting you ask?  This one I did learn from Christina and maybe we can talk her into a tutorial (hint hint!)… overcast day, morning sun or some shade (without really bright back light).  For example…

Here is Thing 2 with the flash

Here he is again without the flash…not perfect, the sun was too bright through the window and overexposed parts of the picture but overall I’m much happier with the result

Hopefully these tips are helpful, they are certainly not professional I’m just a goofy mamma trying to get good pics of my busy wriggly kids so this is a lay-woman’s tutorial for all the photo goofs out there!

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