photo seminar

Yesterday I went to a photo seminar and safari to learn more about using my camera properly. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and last weekend I took the Groupon deal for a photo session as a "sign" that it was time. The seminar called Basic Elements was done by Val & Stephanie from Capturing True Emotion Photography out of Orange County, California - and they were terrific.

The seminar part was four hours at a hotel downtown, and we learned about all kinds of things. We learned about ISO, aperture, shutter speed... and by the time to got to exposure, I was getting a little stressed out - will I remember all of this?! And by the end, I was overwhelmed with weeks of information learned in the past few hours. There really wasn't any reason to be stressed out though... everything was in the workbook, and what wasn't, I took notes on. And Val and Stephanie did go at a good speed, reviewed each section, and did a great job with with providing us with materials for reference and a handy-dandy cheat sheet.

I'm a visual learner, though, so (after meeting a friend for lunch) I was thankful for the safari portion of the day. It was the time we took our cameras out of our bags and tried what we had been taught. Val and Stephanie gave us assignments throughout the safari to help us put into practice what we had learned, step by step, and then how to bring it together and get different effects we want.

For example, they taught us how to do "panning" and get photos (imagine a kid running on a soccer field) where there is a runner that is clear, and the background is blurry:

And to have the runner blurry, but the background clear:

And to do action shots:

And here are a few others from the day that I'm proud of (there's not post-production on these):

I have quite a bit of work to do, so don't expect all of my pictures to be perfect going forward. But I'm proud to say that I now know how to use the manual modes on my camera and don't have to use auto for everything, anymore. I know how to use the features and to adjust them and how they fit together.

Totally worth it! If you have a camera (they can help with any SLR or point and shoot) you should consider this.

things that make me go hmm... #2

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been enjoying my first summer in 6 years where I haven't been involved significantly in the back-end operations of our big summer events at work. Big. It's the first summer that I didn't spend most of my evenings and weekends working on it. And this year, I got to just attend. And it was awesome. I get a bunch of my work peeps that from our other offices and that work remotely - and I only see many of them at this event (in the summer and in the winter) every year.

It was great getting to have conversations with people that weren't on the fly, or with me being bossy (out of necessity, of course), or the quick hug and run (yes, we hug - we hardly see each other!). And on top of it, I had time to digest it and remember it later!

A number of people told me: "You look great! So happy and... relaxed!" (I bold "relaxed" because each of them emphasized that part...)

I said: "This is what I always look like the rest of the year. You only saw me when we were at the events twice a year when I was crazy busy!"

Me with our university's founders - Summer 2011.

Now I wonder what I looked like when they saw me before... hmm...


See also things that make me go hmm... #1.

Hello!

So, I've been a little MIA for the summer. It was time for a break... enjoying the first summer I've really had to myself in about 6 years because my work life isn't nearly so seasonally hectic anymore. Hooray!

So, what has been going on? Well, we've spent some time on the lake.

I've been spending a lot of quality time with my Nook. Some favorites were The Help, the Hunger Games series, and The Front Porch Prophet.

We enjoyed the 4th of July Family Fun Fest!

I saw Bill Clinton speak at the commencement for the university I work at.

I puppy sat for some friends. Meet Tex. He's the smartest, sassiest dog I know. (OK, maybe he doesn't look very sassy here, but he totally is.)

And I went to our family reunion (it's every 3 years, and I've missed the last two - see above about having summer back...) And now I'm on the committee for planning the next one.

And we did some family four-wheeling...

To a bridge that my great-great grandpa built in 1910... (is that the right number of greats??)

And, I'm back - and I feel like I'm on top of the world.

I plan to get back to regular posting now. Hopefully there will be some fun stuff coming soon! This Saturday I'm attending a photography seminar to learn how to use my camera's features properly. Sunday I'm going to a fringe festive play written by a colleague of mine (Change Agent - check it out). More to come!

Oh, and speaking of photos, I linked up this week to Ma Nouvelle Mode's Summer Lovin' photo contest. :) Thanks to my college buddy Laura @ Life with Laura for sharing.

Hope you're Lovin' Summer, too!

p.s. if you want to receive an e-mail notification when I post, you can subscribe here. Subscribers are neat. And so are you. Coincidence?  :)