Adventures in Amateur Photography

I LOVE taking pictures. Especially now that I have decent equipment (a Canon T1i digital SLR, to be more specific). Adding to my enjoyment is the kick-butt editing software that I use (Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3). It's a killer combo. I'm always learning more about my equipment, and I know that I've only barely scratched the surface of what I could do if I really put my mind to it. That's not to say that I think I'm some sort of incredible untapped talent - I just know that I haven't yet tapped the full potential of my camera!

Take Joe & Tiffany's engagement session, for example. These two, our dear friends, are getting married in August 2012.

We went out to their wedding venue one weekend and shot some engagement photos for their save-the-date cards. I went a little nuts with the opportunity to do some shooting in a pretty setting with willing subjects ;-) Now, note that my subjects are currently standing in direct sunlight. I HATE doing this to people. But my limited knowledge of fill light and of my own external flash forced me to do this in many situations. Otherwise, you end up with photos like this...

...an otherwise lovely shot, foiled by harsh shadows across the subjects' faces. This is the curse of a lovely, sunny day (when you don't know what you're doing with your own equipment and don't have the time to figure it out on the fly).

As I hinted above, I do have a nice flash set-up that I'm quite sure could have eliminated these shadows with appropriate fill light. But (a) I didn't even think of that while we were there (bright sunny days don't exactly scream "bust out the flash!" to an amateur such as myself), and (b) I wouldn't know exactly how to set up my flash to make it happen even if I had thought of it. I have got to work on that. My dad is an excellent photographer with a very in-depth understanding of these sorts of mechanics, so he and I busted out the user manual for my fancy schmancy flash yesterday and made some headway toward setting me straight.

ANYWAY, now that I've sufficiently explained myself and my lighting issues, I'll share a few more of my favorites.

I like sepia. Had you noticed? Haha! Anyway Joe, Tiff and their families were very happy with the photos, so that's all I really need to be concerned with at the end of the day. I'm so glad that I was able to give them a nice set of photos to commemorate this special time, without them having to pay for a professional session. I have quite a bit of work to do as far as my own skills are concerned, but I'm obviously sorta proud of these (since I'm now blasting them onto the internet)! I hope to have the opportunity to do this sort of thing more often - it's so much fun!