Piling up

I was so excited to be all caught up with HSMSHS, and then yesterday it got away from me again.

My youngest and oldest are both down with the flu. Middle child had her turn last weekend, so hopefully it will stay confined to the two of them.

The prompt yesterday was piles--and let me tell you--I've got piles! I have laundry piles out the wazoo. We've been having water issues for over a month now (repairman comes next week--fingers crossed!) so laundry has been backing up a bit anyway, but with kids taking turns being sick...well, I've got piles of clean stuff waiting to be folded, piles by the washing machine waiting to to in, and piles stacking up in the laundry baskets. It's not pretty, and I'm not sure how taking a photo is going to help anyone. I'm not sure it's something I want a solid memory of.

So I'm going to be digging out a bit today while nursing my sickies. If I get a chance for relief I might get brave and snap a few photos, even get over to the site to see what today's prompt is, but I'm not making promises.

It's been one of those weeks.

Well if that's all...

Thanks to the team at DPS (if you've never been there, and you're into photography, run!) I was lead to Chase Jarvis' amazing blog. He really seems dedicated to helping the aspiring photographer "make it"; in whatever way they define making it.

Anyway, working my way through the archives, I find that he has posted the Secret to Success in Photography. That's right, it's no longer a secret!

So I'm well on my way to number 2, it's just a matter of figuring out number 1.

How about you?

Portrait Practice

I've been booked for sure as the second shooter at my very first wedding this summer, and of course I'm nervous. I'm making lists and checking them twice and I'm spending hours on flickr and various blogs and photography sites gathering info and ideas.

Most importantly though, I'm conscious of the fact that what I need most is practice, practice, practice! So yesterday while the kids were lounging on the couch I pulled out the camera. I sat on the floor in front of them so they could still see and started shooting. Here are a couple of favourites:

I had on my 50mm 1.8 for all of my shots, as I'm still getting to know it better. I did my favourite lens exercise: set your camera to AV, choose a pretty stationary subject, and then open your aperature. Wide open! Take your shot. Move your dial one stop, shoot again. Do this for every single f-stop. You'll get a real quick feel for what the lens can do and what settings you're going to like. Of course, you should do it again and again at different distances, but it's a great exercise and you'll really know your lens when you're done.

Anyway, both of the above shots were taken at f/2.3, so I guess I know what makes me happy.

Guess what I'm practicing for here?

(Don't you love how she's willing to hold out her hands for me but not take her eyes off of the television?)

So while I'm practicing and playing, I'd love to know a couple of things:

1) Who's your favourite wedding photographer? Why do you love them? Link me up!

2) What editing software do you use and why? I'm still trying to choose. I downloaded the trial version of PSE7 before Christmas and played with it a bit but really spent most of my time weeping and wailing and knashing my teeth. I'm going to download Lightroom today and see if it annoys me less. I can't afford the full version of Photoshop. I'm even considering Gimp because--FREE! Of course I prefer to get the shot as perfect as possible in camera, but everyone needs a little buff and polish, right? I want to be comfortable with whatever software I choose long before the wedding so I can edit quickly but carefully, so I'm going to have to decide and buy in the next month. (I just don't think Picasa can handle it.)

Thanks everyone! Have a happy weekend!

The one that got away...

Alternately titled: A case for Manual Focus

Living in the country, we get a lot of "visitors" to our home. We have a small family of deer that drop by regularly. There are songbirds and butterflies, despite the incredible number of cats between ourselves and our neighbours. You know spring is here when you hear the spring peepers singing (frogs) and fall and spring are heralded by the ducks and geese flocking overhead. In the summer I love to fall asleep listening to the loons on the lake and there's a flock of Canada geese that nest just down the road and are one of the reasons for purchasing a lens with telephoto abilities--those goslings are adorable but their parents are crazy protective!

Then there are the occasional visitors, the ones that you don't see all that often. There is a nesting pair of bald eagles on the lake that occasionally come and rest in the trees outside our house. We've never seen them here by the lakes, but a couple of kilometres away at the farms coyote sightings are not uncommon and the farmers are often serenaded. We've seen black bear and moose a couple of times (not together of course). On one very memorable occasion we saw what we think was a bobcat. Those are the sightings that you miss if you don't have the camera on and ready, the ones that make us call up family and friends to make them play the "guess what we just saw" game.

And they rarely believe us. Skeptics, one and all.

So when I looked out the window the other day and saw something I hadn't seen at our place before, I knew I needed photographic proof of its visit. I grabbed the camera and flipped to auto so I could get a snapshot or two before it disappeared.

Big mistake.

Oh auto mode, how you failed me. I know it's hard to focus through the screen on the fleet-footed black animal in the white snow, but come ON! Can't you do better than that?

Unfortunately it was gone before I could do anything about my settings or my lens. I've been frustrated quite a bit lately by the camera's focus points differing from MY focus points, and this was the last straw. I flipped the switch. My lenses are ALL now set on MF, and I'm having a blast.

So, two questions:

1. Do you shoot on MF or AF (and why?)

2. Any guesses as to what our visitor was?