Playing with the timer function

Last night, my husband and I had an amazing (seriously, amazing) dinner at Bones in Atlanta to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. Before we left, I wanted to take a picture of us to document the occasion. Now usually these pictures are taken with my iPhone and have about half of each of our faces and are nice and blurry but can still somewhat capture the scene. But now I have my Rebel! The iPhone simply wouldn't do. I wish I had taken a picture of the crazy set-up I had to invent to take the place of the fact that I do not have a tripod. Perhaps a description will suffice: imagine the dining room table pulled over to the side, topped with a stepladder which still wasn't quite high enough (we're tall folks...) so I perched my camera on top of the box it came in with a stack of napkins under the lens so its weight didn't tip it forward. And this was the successful combination! There were many unsuccessful combos before that. Anyway, I'd like to go ahead and say IT WORKED! And I think we have some nice pretty pictures to show for it: 

Note: this was the first one we took, and the best in my opinion. Don't tell Jeremy I kept taking pictures even though this was perfect!

This one didn't work because the hook from the frame we took off the wall is between our heads.

This one didn't work because the flash shows on the picture in our hands, and I don't think we were quite ready.

This one is okay, but I like the first one better.

Still like the first one better.

Even though we were still pretty full after dinner, we had to go with the old tradition of digging into the frozen top layer of our wedding cake from last year. It was not quite the same, but still very yummy!

Last year!

This year!

Oh, Emory... (Hospital, that is)

After last night, I decided to just take my camera out this morning and snap whatever spoke to me. All the IV bags running into Rhonda were hanging right over my head, so I thought I'd take some photos of these yucky but life-saving meds. The chemo is the one under the green bag (it can't get in sunlight) and I told Rhonda it looks more like Strawberry-Kiwi Kool Aid than chemo. Maybe it is! Either way, it's working for her and we are so very grateful.

Among the many things I am grateful for is the relationship between these two crazy ladies. I have been so very blessed to have a mother and a mother-in-law who love each other as much as they love their children. My mom has stayed in the hospital with Rhonda at least one night, sometimes two, of every single round of 5-day inpatient chemo that she has had. They have created a very strong bond and I am eternally grateful for their special friendship.

Still an amateur, 

Katie

Somebody's in trouble...

This is what happens when you leave the Zaxby's trash at the very top of the trash can and Bogey gets hungry. He now has Zax sauce and wing sauce all over him!!! He'd be sort of cute if he wasn't in so much trouble.

Still an amateur,
Katie

The ATL

I'm spending the night tonight in the hospital with my mother-in-law who has cancer and is in the middle of her 5th round of chemo. I was about to sit down to eat my dinner and happened to look out the window and it was that beautiful time of the evening when the sun was going down and everything was all orange-y and so pretty. I told her "Peace!" and ditched her to go walk around the block and take some pictures. I was only gone for like five minutes, so don't go judging me too much. I didn't want to stray too far from the hospital because it gets pretty sketchy around here at night. Anyway, I like the way some of these turned out! I also tweaked them a little bit in Picasa. Here they are!

Crazy color saturation on this one. Eh, I like it.

What in the world is that, you ask? It's the shadow of my camera. I'm such a nerd.

The light was hitting this building really nicely. I don't know if I did it justice. Hey, I'm learning!

Gave the whole "soft focus" thing a try here. Weird.

I need to learn how to make the sky "bluer"

Still an amateur,

Katie

Learning about editing

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I know next to zero about editing photos after they've been taken. I mean, I really have no clue about retouching and exposure and lighting and all that stuff. I do think I know people pretty well and what they should look like, though. I'm definitely interested in learning more about editing. In fact, I'll probably go ahead and say that it's pretty much a necessity to learn more. However, I did do my first little stint in making tiny edits in Picasa tonight. I must say, I'm sort of pleased with myself. If anyone who actually knows anything about photography and editing decides to read this and is thinking to yourself that I'm stupid and that lady looks crazy, that's cool. I probably am stupid! But I like the way this turned out and I did it all by myself. So ha!

Still an amateur though,
Katie

Love my new toy!

Over the past two days of owning this camera, I feel like I've already learned so much. I keep finding great beginner's photography tips online for all different photography topics. I've read about what to do when you first get your camera (unpack it and read the manual, btw...) and learned 8 things my camera can do that I didn't know about and learned a LOT about portrait photography that I didn't already know. I've also already ordered some gels for my flash so that I can soften the effect of the light and spent COUNTLESS hours trying to pick out the perfect camera strap cover (Could it be this one? Or this one? But what about this one??? Happily accepting opinions on this decision.) on Etsy.

I think maybe I want to be a portrait photographer if I ever make anything of this. I love people and capturing their interesting quirks and unique beauty would just be so cool. I've already found more unwilling models. And my wedding rings because I was playing with aperture. And Bogey some more...

Still an amateur,

Katie

The beginning of the end

The purpose of this new blog is my personal documentation of the journey through amateur photography. Maybe I'll be a real photographer one day - who knows?? I don't expect anyone to check this religiously or even to care at all. It's more for me than anyone else. I'm pretty much an open book, though, so I'll go ahead and put it all out there!

I've always been interested in photography. I just love it. I've never had a "nice" camera and I didn't really know if I ever would. I sort of got bitten by the photography bug when my best friend Sarah asked me if I would take some maternity pictures of her in exchange for lunch. A free meal, you say??? Count me in! I didn't even have my own camera, she let me use her Canon Rebel T2i because I somewhat knew how to work the auto function. Hehe, that's a point and shoot camera! Four hours or so later, we ended up with a LOT of pictures and even a couple of good ones. That day was all it took! 

Fast forward a few weeks and pregnant Sarah became mama Sarah and a new subject for the camera was born - pun intended ;). With Sarah as my assistant, we put new baby Carter through all kinds of craziness in search of some memorable newborn moments. We ended up with some winners!

After these photo shoots, I really got the bug. I told my husband that I wanted to be a photographer when I grow up so now I need a camera. Well, my AMAZING husband told me that the camera could be my birthday present! Here's the part that makes him so amazing: it's July 5th and my birthday is October 3rd. He didn't even make me wait months and months! So, today was the day! I got to have a wonderful lunch with my amateur photo guru, Tiffany, and then off we went to Costco where she assured me the best deals would be found. She was right! I landed a Canon Rebel T3i with two lenses and a case and all that good stuff for a very good price. I was so happy to have it that I wouldn't put it in the buggy going out to the parking lot. I was basically hugging it like a kindergartner leaving the Build-a-Bear store with her new creation. When I finally got home, I immediately tore into the box and started looking at all the goodies. I was slightly devastated when the battery wasn't charged and I had to wait to charge it before I could play with my new toy. When the light finally turned green, I was off! My poor Bogey got his fair share of portraits made today along with some seashells I collected at the beach and some random photos of the area around my house. I imagine there will be many more pictures of Bogey to grace these pages in the weeks and months to come. Stay tuned! For now, a sampling of the first photos taken with my camera:

Still an amateur,

Katie