{Photo} Mamas

I have always wanted to improve my photography skills - not like I'm a go all professional on ya - but three years ago we bought a "fancy" point-and-shoot and we've never taken it off automatic. I am trying to convince Benny that we need a DSLR, but he always reminds me that you can buy the fanciest camera out there but if you don't know how to use it, your pictures will still suck. Darn.. I hate it when he's right.

 Benny LOVES taking pictures and takes 1,000s every time he goes to Germany. Yet, we never print them because they might be Facebook quality, but not wall hanging quality. When our photographers posted that they were having an online photo workshop for the month of March, I was THRILLED. I signed up in literally 0.5 seconds. Like set Trice on the ground, ran to the computer, signed up. I didn't even realize that it might cost money. Luckily, the price wasn't bad (and I'm finding it totally worth it). Benny thought I had signed him up, not me, so he was kind of disappointed until he realized we could obviously do it together without paying the fee twice.

She is an AWESOME teacher. If you can explain something so even I understand it, you are awesome. Her handouts and advice are very helpful. I would like to document my progress on here in hopes that by the end of March I can see improvement in my photog skills. These photos won't be edited in any way, so this is simply what comes out of my camera. We have weekly assignments or tasks and we are also supposed to take a photo each day and at the end we will have a journal to show our progress. I have emailed several of my photos to her and she gives advice on how to fix them.

I learned very quickly that practicing on Trice just isn't going to happen. He is crazy about OBSESSED with the camera. I swear he can smell hear it coming from a mile away... He always stops what he's doing immediately and comes flying at me. I think he would swallow it whole if I would let him. So trying to change settings, figure out lighting, focus, etc. is challenging and frustrating. And I really can't be mad at my 7 month old for wanting to explore, so I'm sticking mostly to still objects.

I took that first step and turned the camera dial to "Manual." My first photo looked something like this...

I thought I saved the actual first completely black photo, but I didn't .. this is a close example, though!

I kept pressing "review" over and over again trying to figure out what was going on with my camera! 

I'm so excited to see what we learn this week... I'm not sure Trice is enjoying the class as much as we are...