Capturing Personality

I really enjoyed this photo shoot with my son. I recognize recently that I don't usually take as much time or focus when photographing my kids, because I know I always take photos of them.  But I wanted to make a concerted effort to act as if it were a shoot.  It was really quite fun, and KNOWING my son so well, I wanted to see if I am doing a good job at capturing personality...and I was pretty pleased!

Thanks for stopping by!
Jessica
If you too want portraits or wedding photography click on my site!
www.jkalashnikovphoto.com

Shoot! Shoot! and Shoot some more!

 

I used to use film and once I switched over to digital, I couldn't believe how much I was holding back! I had no idea how I was not taking a photo, because I didn't want to waste film. Well now, I shoot, shoot, and shoot some more! I still have to tell myself to "take another one," because I keep wanting to hold back, or think, "how could there really be another angle?" Yet, again and again it's sometimes the 30th photo that I finally find exactly what I was looking for! Also if you take a photo, take a few more, move in closer and take some more! 

These were all taken in my kitchen from a vase of flowers! Except the one below that was outside my office window.

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I discovered Manual Mode. :)

I was always quite hesitant to use manual mode on my camera because it was too extreme: way too dark or way too light! Well I was just afraid to adjust it to such extremes.  I would continue turning my knob to about 500 shutter speed from 2500, and think I was being generous with the turns. WELL....as I found out, you need to crank that baby all the way! You can actually look at the settings from "A" mode (aperature) and do something similar in manual mode.  I have found that there's more ability to make weird light work instead of having the camera automatically try to compensate for what it thinks the adjustments need to be, which are usually too extreme!  I noticed that Jasmine Star regularly uses manual mode, so that's what inspired me to give it  a try!