it's almost christmas

I'm really looking forward for Christmas. I'm hoping to take a lot of different pictures this break, with friends and family, of the outdoors, and hopefully some festive pictures as well.

Christmas means the whole family is going to be home, and half of my family is kids, so I am hoping to get some good pictures with my little siblings, nieces and nephews.

Also my sister has just recently had a baby, so she asked me to have a photo shoot with their family, and get some good baby pictures. I'm feeling nervous about that, cause it's another project that I have no idea how to do. So this is my next step at the moment. Tips on baby pictures and Family pictures. I'm hoping my oldest sister Tamara, who knows photography, will give me some good guidelines.

Photoshop?

For my next step in the project, I really want to learn how to use Photoshop. So I'm hoping that that is my next step. Me and Raychel are hoping to get the newer version of Photoshop, the one that we are working with PhotoshopCS3, but its much more complicated and all the demos that I'm trying to learn with aren't done with that version, so I can't just follow along. Hopefully we will figure out how to get the PhotoshopCS6, and then I can start editing more with that. I'm a little nervous to work with Photoshop because I don't really know how to work with it very well, and also my laptop hasn't been working all that well.

day with the guriles

Before this little adventure, I did some research and posted it under my page 'tips and guidelines,' but I contacted my sister and wrote down some ideas and guidelines so that I wouldn't be completely lost during this shoot. Yes its all an art and type of experiment, but its nice to not be completely lost. So I did some playing around and figured some of my settings out. I also looked at some photography ideas, trying to get some inspiration on different frames and shots.

We did went to Kildonan Park at around 3-3:30 ish and we just walked around and had fun, took photo's and just were adventures. Climbed a bridge, tried to feed ducks. We brought some different outfits and just ended up change somewhat discreetly behind trees, and just having a good time! My Pentex started having some focusing problems as the sun went down, but I wasn't too concerned because I thought I got some decent shots. Yes I got to learn how to figure out my aperture settings and some shutter speed stuff. Used some different automatic settings, and even did some manual focusing. But it was also a great memory.

I'm sorry these too so long to finally get up. I've been super busy lately and I haven't had time to edit them, and upload them. But here they are.

They are all up on my flicker.

Family Pictures

Doing the Algera's pictures what I was nervous about, especially with my camera not working properly. It ended up being a beautiful day, and because of the time change, the sun wasn't directly over head which was perfect. It really only took me 20 min. I gave some suggestions on how to stand and what not to do, but we found a shady spot with the fall trees in the background and they ended up being fine. I got Danielle and Raychel to switch sides about half way through, and I actually ended up liking those last ones better. I also played around with my zooming and different settings, but like I said the sun was perfect so the lighting ended up being just fine.

I don't really have anything to compare them to, so I don't really know if they are decent or not... but the they liked them and even got it developed already so I must have done something right. I'm not going to post a bunch of them because, they in the end are all the same thing.

coming soon

Everything ended up going quite well on Sunday. I still have to edit my photos so I will get them up as soon as I can, but I did notice as I was uploading my pictures that the top halves of a lot of my shots ended up being a bit blurry. I don't know why this happened, I was sure my lens was clean and that my camera was focused when I took the pictures. A couple weeks ago I did have a few problems with my Pentax. It kept glitching and making funny noises and not focusing, so I ended up turning it on manual settings so that I could still use my camera. But then before I went out on Sunday I tried it out, to see what I would have to end up doing for later that day, and it seemed fine. No glitching, no noises, and it was focusing on automatic. So I'm not really sure what happened but I still got some good shots and the whole things was so fun! I talked to my sister Tamara about it, in that it used to be her camera, and she said that it's probably getting just getting old. I asked her if I should go get it checked and have it professionally cleaned, but that is just another expense. I'm probably just going to end up leaving it for now, clean it myself, and if it continues to have problems then I'll cross that bridge when it comes.
As I said before I will be uploading them onto my Flickr account as soon as possible.

preperations

Tomorrow I'm doing another shoot with two of my friends, Raychel Algera and Miranda Vlaming. I aslo have the opportunity to take some family pictures for the Algera's.  I'm so excited to do another shoot, and just play around with my camera and the outdoors.

I've been looking up some tips lately on what makes good photo's and just being inspired by other peoples photography so that tomorrow and in future times I can get a good idea of what I'm doing. Just trying to get more of a feel for all of this.

The shoot with the girls will be less stressful than the shoot of the Algera family. Tomorrow with the girls I can play around and just take pictures and have fun, but with the family pictures they have to be more formal, and rightly done. I'm contacting my older sister, who know a lot about photography, for some tips and guidelines about what makes good family pictures and what does not. I'm hoping that her tips will help me and guide me in this. I just have to remember that I have to take lots of pictures and then delete them in the end.

Again, I'm so excited to be doing another round tomorrow, especially cause the weather is supposed to be beautful so I hope everything turns out and that all goes well.

I'll post them as soon as I can! They will be up on my Flickr account once they are up.

first shoot

I did my first shoot a little while ago, and I'm really happy with the way they turned out. I took one of my good friends and we explored some trains, and I thought it would be fun to do a photo shoot. Im not going to post them all on this post, but I'm making a flicker account so I can upload all my progress onto it and then everyone who wants to see them can.

The thing I'm learning about taking photo shoots is that I just have to take pictures. Especially if you have a 'model' or an actual person thats posing for the pictures. That person is constantly moving around and doing what I ask them too, but you can't just wait to take the pictures. Some of my best shots were the ones that weren't really "supposed to happen". After the shoot and coming back, I uploading the pictures onto my computer and I realized how much of the shots did and didn't turn out. But if I would have just did a few, I feel like I wouldn't have gotten all the good shots, that weren't as posed.

Just click my photo for more, the link will take you to my Flickr account: