Heads up!  Wanna take a free online course?  HP is offering a free class called Beyond Basics about fundamental photography techniques.  Class starts April 7 and runs until May 9. 

If you are wondering what happened to my Morgue File class that I’m following, I still intend to do it when the weather FINALLY turns to spring.  What can I say, I’m a sissy and don’t like photographing landscapes in the freezing rain or wind.  It’s been miserably cold here and it just will not lift!  But when it does, I’ll proceed with the next assignment.  In the meantime, I’ve taken up knitting.  A lovely indoor sport.  I’ll share more about that some other time.

I was visiting around to some of the blogs I like to visit from time to time and I came across one photographer who published a list of her favorite vendors.  Here’s a link in case you are looking for a new vendor/lab/royalty free music source or something. 

Julie C Butler’s favorites list

Stay focused!

I came across this information on Chris Humphreys’ blog last summer but I wasn’t ready to put it to use yet.  I just came across it again on Melissa Jill’s blog yesterday.  Chris talks about setting up the camera to use the * button on the back to focus instead of the shutter button.  He says the idea is to seperate the shutter function from the focus function.  You can read his whole blog post here.  Melissa Jill talks about how she feels her focus is much more accurate with this set up.  You can read her post here.

With professionals like these using this function, I thought I should at least try it.  Afterall, tack sharp photographs are what we’re after, right?  I just set my camera up with this function today.  It’s interesting and like Melissa says, it will take some getting used to. 

When I was reading through my manual, I took note of the AE lock function too.  I was thinking about how useful this is for situations with backlighting.  I plan to focus on practicing with that feature in the coming week.

The next assignment in class is to set up my camera at 1/60 shutter speed and then take a landscape photo at each available aperature on my camera.  As soon at the weather cooperates with me and I have a little bit of time to myself, I will tackle that assignment and post about it.  I keep reading that Manual mode is challenging in the beginning but at some point something just clicks for each photographer and it just starts to make sense.  I’m not anywhere close to it making sense yet but I intend to keep trying until it clicks. 

I feel like my feeble brain might be trying to tackle a wee bit too much right now with these three focus areas.  But that is where my focus will be this week.

a) getting used to this back button focus set up

b) attempting to get a couple shots with the AE lock to see proper exposure on my subject in a backlit situation

c) attempting to master a proper exposure in Manual mode before my subjects (usually my little kids) move away and the shot is gone.

Stay focused friends!

I’ve got a big ‘ole bee in my bonnet wanting to take a photography course.  Problem is, I live out in po-dunk and there is not much around me in the way of photography courses.  The other problem is that hubby has an erratic work schedule at times and I still have three little ducklings in my care to work the scheduling around.  So what is a girl to do?!  I have been longing to take Wendy Schulz’ beginner course for ages.  I recently signed up to get on her waitlist.  Her work just talks to me.  She is very busy and doesn’t have a class ready for me to start any time soon so I had to move forward.  (FYI – I’m going to take at least one course from her someday.)

I discovered that Bryan Peterson – the same Bryan Peterson who wrote Understanding Exposure – has founded a website called The Picture Perfect School of Photography.  There are several classes offered at this site – one of which is called Understanding Exposure in which he co-teaches.  The cost for this class is $395 and the next one begins in March.  Oh, yeah!  Baby I want to sign up for that!  Maybe I will too.  Assuming there is still space available when I get my fanny in gear with the cash to back up my plan.

Then I found one to start TONIGHT.  I want someone out there to follow along with me.  Will you?  It’s free.  You heard me right, free.  Technically she did the course back in 2004.  But the course is archived and still available for us to follow along as if she were teaching it today.  What do we have to lose, right?  Let’s do it.  Who’s with me?! 

It is taught by Jodie Coston who apparently makes her living at stock photography.  I’ve read through lesson one and in my opinion this woman knows what she is talking about.  I got some interesting perspective on composition and I’m anxious to do the assignments.   Here is lesson one.  Read it and let me know what you think.  Leave a comment if you plan to play along and be sure to leave a link to your blog so we can all see your assignments too.   

Guess what I did last night…  I got my very own domain name!  Since I don’t plan to run a website on it yet… I bought the most basic thing I could find.  I also signed up with Typepad to bump my blog to the next level – which means I only pay $2.70 more a month (I found a lifetime 15% off coupon) and I get three blogs and I can customize them more.  Being small time right now… one of the other blogs will be strictly business related portfolio stuff that I’d put on a website if I had one.  That will be the blog that is tied to my domain name.  Cool, eh?  If you are considering getting your own domain name for your blog or website, I found Netfirms to be the cheapest thing going.  It was $5.95 a year to own the name.  Naturally, they offer upgrades but I’m not in a position to need any of that now.  I’m psyched!  One step closer to seeing this thing happen. 

My new laptop came with very basic photo editing software on it.  Although it’s great for what it does, I decided that if I could find Photoshop Elements for less than $100 anywhere, I’d buy it.  I stopped in to Costco today and found PhotoShop Elements 6 for $80.  I snapped that puppy up on the spot!  I know that real photographers would scoff at using Elements instead of the real PhotoShop deal… but I’ve had PhotoShop CS on my old computer for months along with a book all about it sitting on my shelf and I haven’t touched it.  It overwhelms me.  It’s not user friendly.  I figure I’ll get familiar in Elements and work my way up to the real deal someday when a) I actually need it b) I can afford it and c) I can get the latest version for the time in question.

I can’t load it up now but I’m planning to have a good time with it tonight!  I hope your plans for this evening inspire you as much as mine do for me!

Over the last 6 months, I’ve been doing a lot of blog surfing trying to learn as much as I can about photography.  One name comes up over and over at various blogs from photographers I admire.  That name is Pictage.  Top notch photographers use them including Davina and Me Ra Koh – among many others.  I decided this morning to find out a little more about them to see if they might be a fit for my tiny little business that I’m hoping to grow.  I filled out a on-line request to have some information sent to me.  Within 20 minutes I had a phone call from Kurt Hilmerson to let me know he was putting my package in the mail, to see if I had any specific questions he could answer and to let me know about a special they are having now that he thought might be perfect for me.  He was incredibly helpful without being high pressure in the least.  I’m floored.  After I hung up with Kurt, I found an email in my in-box following up on the phone call with his direct line and other information.  Wow!

If you are in a position to consider a low cost professional presentation, I’d recommend contacting Kurt about the special they are running where you can participate in Pictage’s service for $19 a month for your first six months to try them out.  The special runs through next Wednesday, October 31.  To say I’m impressed about their reaction to a tiny little start up like mine is an understatement. 

If you are interested, you can find out more at www.pictage.com or you can email Kurt at khilmerson@pictage.com .  Wow.

I know some of you get me on bloglines and I know many of you are also aspiring photographers.  I wanted to make sure you knew that there is a contest going on now called "An Emotional Appeal Photo Contest."  The prize is a Tamron AF 18-250mm Di II zoom lens.  You can enter as many times as you’d like but the deadline is October 30.  Hurry!  Enter something!  You can find out more about it here.

Want to see what I entered?  Here you go…

Remorse.

Impatience.

Sad Eye.

Jealousy.

Cupcake Glee.

Trepidation.

Quiet Contemplation.

Best of luck! 

Have you heard of this?  The theory is that if you take a picture a day, you will improve your photography.  It doesn’t matter what the subject matter is.  All that matters is that you take a picture, upload it and then study it to see how you can improve it.  Some people do it simply to explore things around them as photo art while some do it as a sort of on-line scrapbook of their daily lives.  I’ve been doing one for about two months now and I combine the two.  Sometimes it’s a snapshot that helps me journal my life (I’ve never been good at keeping a regular diary/journal for long) and sometimes it’s an experiment with my camera. 

You can host it anywhere you see fit.  I’ve seen them on Blogger and Typepad among others but my favorite is Photoblog.  It’s free, it’s easy, it’s reliable and it’s fun.  You can post up to 20 pictures a day (for those days when you just have too many good ones to narrow it down to just one) and you can jot a note about each one under the photo, followed by a larger box where you can type in as much detail as you wish.  When I post, I post the highlight picture(s) from the previous day.  So far, I’ve enjoyed this much more than a regular journal and I think it’s fun to go back and see the details of my life.  I’ve even met a few new friends who comment and share their pictures with me.  At the end of a year, you can go to someone like Blurb and turn your blog journal into a real book.  Isn’t that fun?!

Join me at Photoblog and start your journal.  What do you have to lose?  Nothing.  What do you have to gain?  A journal of your life and better photoskills.  Come on…  play with me!

Here is my favorite shot from this past week for Best Shot Monday.

ISO 100, F/5, 1/60 – Speedlight 430EX with Gary Fong Lightsphere with inverted dome, pointed to ceiling.  White Balance set at flash (I think).

For more Best Shot Monday pictures, visit Picture This and check the comments section.

Once upon a time, I was watching The Whole Picture on DIY with Erin Manning.  She mentioned that you can take pictures in your home without expensive studio lighting by purchasing some simple lights from your local home improvement store.  Ever since watching that episode, I’ve wanted to try it.  I went and bought myself three of the lamps pictured below, three light bulbs and two clamps.  I spent a total of $37.  I thought I was buying day light bulbs but I was mistaken. 

To make sure my pictures come out correctly, I have to set my white balance to tungsten.  I’ll be on the look out for daylight bulbs in the future because I think they’d make the portrait look better.

I set up my first lamp by clamping it on top of my dining room cabinet to aim it down toward where I plan to have my subject seated.  Then I set up the other two lamps by clamping them on chairs on either side of the room aiming them toward where my subject would be – creating side lighting.  I think I’m going to have to spend some time setting up those lamps to get them just right and figuring out where they would work best.  I had some serious shadows happening on my back drop.  That will take some practice.  Speaking of backdrop, I used a king size flat sheet and clamped it to a large mirror that was leaning against my china cabinet.

Here is a shot I got of my dog – Miss Molly.

Now that I think I have everything set up in a fashion that can produce some even lighting, it’s time to bring in my toddler.  Each of these shots have been cropped but here are the portraits I took of him today.

If you want to be able to produce some nice pictures in your own home when your little people are in a good mood and not be at the mercy of grumpy studio photographers, perhaps this is your solution.  It will take some practice but it may be a good, inexpensive bet for your consideration.  I snapped 45 pictures of my child this morning.  I cropped three of them and I think they might be worth printing. 

Do you know how to add the copyright symbol to any of your work?  Writing, photographs… anything you want to protect on your blog?  As you can see in the pictures in my last post, I was trying to learn how to add a watermark and copyright logo to my pictures – just in case.  All you have to do is hold down the alt button and type the numbers 0169.  It’s that simple!