Hypercolor Home: Snow

(Merged post from a separate blog back to this blog. Originally posted 2/18/14)

The "Story of My Life" blog was created for a lot of reasons. I wanted a place (other than Facebook) to post my pictures. I wanted a place that I could document my photography journey. I wanted a place I could log my thoughts, fears, lessons learned, hopes, dreams, reality checks, and so much more when it comes to photography. I eat sleep and dream photography...it oozes through my blood...it pours out of my pores (gross). I daydream CONSTANTLY about posing, and lighting, and building a business, and props, and colors, and logos, and just everything! I spend hours online learning and being inspired, and wishing.hoping.praying that I could just get BETTER at it. But yet....I find that I really rarely take my camera out. Isn't that ODD? How can I call myself a photographer in any sense of the word, if I hardly ever even practice. I mean, for real?! That's embarrassing.

So, it's time for that to stop. Right here right now.

"The Story of My Life" is being born today.

For me. And anyone who wants to play along. :)

There are about a billion and seven Photography related photo challenges out there. But this one is for me. I'm too big of a coward to post anything "out there" yet to be critiqued. So I'll stick to this little ol' blog I created.

Anyway, let's get to the point.

I will start doing a weekly photo challenge project. My number one reason is to improve my photography. But it's also so I can start taking more/better pictures of my kids with something other than my iPhone.

Here are some of the Weekly Themes I hope to incorporate. I will add to this list as I come up with more. But for each post, I will choose One Favorite photo. One lesson I learned. And one thing I think I did well on.

THEMES:

Snow
Backlighting
Full Sun
Shade
Using a Reflector
Silhouette
Shadows
Window light
Black and White
Motion
Still Life
Food
Morning
Evening
After Dark
From Above
From below
Posed
Lifestyle
Reflections
Framing/Rule of Thirds

Oh, and can SOMEBODY please hold me to this challenge? I really need to do it, and I royally suck at sticking to anything. So....please? :)

Here is my first post for my weekly challenge! Snow.

Shooting in the snow is difficult. Even on a cloudy or gloomy day, the snow is like a big giant reflector. I already shoot in manual mode, but learning to shoot in the snow was still a challenge for me. I read a lot of great things online, with some wonderful tips. So, since apparently it's never going to stop snowing this winter, I took the kids out yesterday with Jeff's help and started snapping away with my newly learned lessons. I'm actually really surprised and thrilled with the end results. :)

This is my favorite photo. And the reason why is because: the composition mainly. Of course, the cute baby, and all that too. :) I also did the least amount of editing to this photo...it was probably closest to "perfect" SOOC.

D700 / 50mm / ISO 250 / f1.8 / 1/1250

One thing I learned (there were a lot!), was that after many hours of editing and re-editing, and re-re-editing these pictures...I actually ended up liking them best pretty much SOOC (straight-out-of-camera). I really only brightened and lighted a bit, and sharpened them.

I have purchased my fair share of Actions, and I have some really great (and expensive) ones from some amazing photographers. And I'm totally not ready to say yet that I'll never use them again...but I hope that someday my photographs are SO good SOOC that I don't feel I have to use them at all!