Practice Makes (Almost) Perfect

I have been slowly relearning my photography techniques that I was first taught in college. I can admit that I didn't really understand or retain much of the technical language from those college courses, but through experimentation and lots and lots (did I mention LOTS?) of practice I am getting the hang of using the manual functions of my fancypants Canon. My husband has been very encouraging about my photography, and has bought almost everything that I have as birthday or Mother's Day presents. Most recently, he bought me a fancy tripod and a lighting kit. I just bought a background system, so I am really set to even take portraits in my home. The portraits are part of the reason my husband bought the fancy cameras. I love to have a lot of pictures of my kids and buying every adorable pose from the portrait studios was terribly expensive. For the last several years, I've taken the portraits of my kids that hang on our walls. And now I'm branching out to taking portraits for others. I have my first portrait session scheduled for later this month. I'll be taking 2-year-old birthday portraits for a high school classmate's daughter. Incidentally, I haven't seen this high school classmate since high school, but we're "friends" on Facebook. Another win for Facebook I guess! I'm excited and nervous about taking portraits for someone else. I'm making my kids pose for me over and over so I can get some big time practice in before I have a client.

I think I have a pretty good eye and I did work for a short time in a portrait studio but that was back when they still used film in the cameras and we could only shoot portrait style (no landscape shots like the one above of K and the one of D below).

The next thing I will get, besides props, is a website for print ordering. And I will probably sell some of my other photos there as well. Here's hoping that things go well!

If I can get shots like these for other people, I think they'll be happy.