A Different Perspective

** ETA- I’m not sure I could have rambled on any more in this post…

please feel free to ignore the words and just look at the pictures!

It seems like all of the photography blogs I have been reading lately have been encouraging fellow “momtographers” to get out there and change their perspective behind the camera. I am guilty of shooting the same shots over and over again of Carter and not really challenging myself behind the lens. I have been trying to be better about changing up my shots and really making my camera work! I have great equipment so it’s beyond time to push past the basics and figure things out. I have been shooting in manual since I got my camera last Christmas, but I stick to rooms where I know exactly what settings to use or outdoors where I can tweak things quickly without messing up my picture too bad. This particular day I really tried to push myself to try something new. The goal was to work a new angle and shoot in manual where I normally would have turned on the flash!

Carter’s playroom is really hard to shoot in because the lighting in there is terrible. We have a few overhead can lights, some lamps, and two windows that don’t let in much light because the neighbor’s houses are so close to us. It has dark walls, dark furniture, and red curtains so everything has a red hue to it. I tend to turn my camera to automatic if I’m trying to take pictures in there because I rely on the flash to help get the colors right and to make sure C is in focus since he moves so much. See the difference in the two pictures? The one above is M and the one below is A. Now, I like the picture above but I h-a-t-e editing so I don’t want to have to go back in afterward and mess with the picture any more than I have to. Hence why automatic works for me when I’m feeling lazy! But…

…the problem with automatic is that the camera doesn’t fire shots fast enough when using the flash and if we’re having a moment where C is being exceptionally adorable I want to get as many pictures as fast as possible! Thus the need to switch to manual so I can shoot in continuous mode and not miss a moment. Since I haven’t been practicing in manual in this room, I never did quite figure out what settings to turn my camera too before C was bored with coloring and wanted to play somewhere else. Even though they didn’t turn out like I had envisioned, I’m still glad I was able to capture the shots and play around. I think that’s the only way to get better as a photographer- to put myself in situations where I’m not as comfortable and practice, practice, practice! Except for the ones in B&W, these are all straight off the camera. Obviously I need to work on the white balance for next time ;)

I think this is my favorite shot! C is so silly coloring on all fours!

Embracing the camera with my tiny little Picasso!