Finding my style

Ha ha now don't laugh but I don't know much about all this technical stuff which, I guess is why I get frustrated and ticked off when things don't work out the way I want them too. I am a hands on learner not a manual reader so I need to be shown and then I pick it up. My camera of frequent use is a Pentax K100, given to me for Christmas a few years back by my husband. Neither of us know anything about brands etc and I have learnt this cameras workings fairly well. It does mostly what I want, if I change lenses occasionally. The lens I use the most is a 28-90mm with

a macro setting, they probably all have one hey!!? See I don't know much about this side of things. I also have a 70-300mm zoom lens which I also got for Christmas last year. It also has a macro setting. The lens the camera came with is a 18-50mm lens which I haven't used in eons.

I used the macro setting on the 28-80mm lens to take the above shot. I love this sort of photo, so a full on macro lens is my dream of addition to my kit. I'd take shots of all sorts of interesting things, bees loaded with pollen, stamens of flowers you know all that stuff.

Lighting for me is a pain. I really need to learn more about it, in my mind I see the way I want things to look, but I'm not sure how to get that result. I like the afternoon light and the early morning light most, no artificial light for me. Sometimes I use a lamp in my studio if it is a bit shadowy, not sure that it creates the effect I want though.

I like the light in this leaf shot the darkness of the background and the intensity of the leaf, I have edited this shot to get the depth that I wanted.

Location location, yes now that is the big question, I love water shots, like at the beach etc and I live on a mountain a long way from the water, so improvise is a big word for me. I take a lot of reflection shots, in lakes, bird baths, ponds etc, water water everywhere.

This photo taken in Darwin at Mingil Beach contains two of the aspects we are looking at, lighting and location. The water and shadows, I love this. My husband on the right and our good friend on the left. A couple of shady characters I reckon. I like to take a specific time to go take shots, though am not always able to do that, so mostly it's where and when I can.

I don't like to take portrait shots other than family and then I don't like to do too much ordering around. I like the more candid shots and all our family shots end up a riot, with all the kids playing up. Which by the way I love.

These shots would never make the cut as far as technical value but it is so much like all our group shots and to be honest I love it.

I guess to sum up, my shooting style is varied, I love candid shots, they capture the memories that I want to keep forever. I like to shoot alone, I can take my time and not feel a bother to others, I like macro shots and shots that capture a moment in time. I'd love a dedicated macro lens. I need to actually take the time to learn more about exposure. At the moment I just like to shoot. My style then is pretty much me, all over the place at any given time ha ha.

Camera less photo walk

How difficult is it to do this?!! Really when I usually have at the very least my phone with me or my trusty point and shoot hidden away in my huge bag. So I walked around our yard we have 9 acres so there is quite a lot to see. I like to take my photos either early in the morning (which lately hasn't happened as we are just into Spring here and I don't like to get out of bed early when it's cold, sorry but a cup of tea and the newspaper propped up with my comfy pillows wins out) or late in the afternoon.

We have huge gum trees in our yard and the sun glints through the leaves and I love the light it creates. I love the glint of the sun on the long grasses that move slowly in the breeze. I love the reflection on the water in the birdbath, the shadows created in the garden beds. The mauve and pink glow of the hydrangea petals. The veins of the leaves lit from behind and like stained glass. I love the spider webs catching the rays and glistening in the sun. I love it when I have watered the garden and the drops of water hang precariously on the tips of leaves and petals and the sunlight catches itself in each one. I love the grey clouds hanging low in the sky and the pink sun setting over the hills. I love the webs of many ground spiders stretched from each blade of grass and shining like silk in the dimming sunlight. I saw all of this in my yard today, no camera sorry.

Familiar Objects

Familiar objects, hmm, well lately I have taken literally thousands of shots of my baby grand daughter who recently turned 1. These aren't the sort of picture I really love to shoot though. Don't get me wrong of course I love taking these pictures of her, she is so adorable, but I love taking shots of other things as well. so my inspiration file is not filled with photos of Elle. No it has doors, and window boxes another favourite thing for me to photograph and flowers and odds and ends.

Todays lesson on photographing the one subject was interesting. I began taking shots of my new hydrangea bush, with it's pretty pink flowers and realised I wanted to actually catch the water droplets on the flowers, as much as the flower itself. I love snapping water droplets, catching the light, clinging on as hard as they can before they splash to the ground. I think it's kind of magical, like a little world caught in those tiny droplets.

I get really excited when I find things like this to shoot, raindrops after a shower, dew on flowers, that sort of thing. I love coming into my computer at the end of a shoot and looking at what I have caught, editing a little or a lot. I get really frustrated when trying to catch something and I can't get my camera to focus on it, I am too close or too far away to get the effect I want. I have a zoom lens with a macro setting on it and my everyday lens also has a macro setting, but I don't have a whizz bang macro lens so I can't always get the really up close shots I want. I was interested to realise that though I started wanting to photograph the flowers that did change, like I said to catching the water droplets. I love the bokeh too, that beautiful blur of light in the background.

So today the journey begins, the journey to finding my eye, my style, the reason why I love to photograph things, why I am rarely happy with what I have done and why I am less confident about my work than others tell me I should be. I am excited to take these first steps, so let's begin.

Thinking on why I take photographs, I feel I have a desire to capture something that has caught my eye, something that has awed me, or made my heart race or intrigued me. I want to capture that feeling, to take it with me, to ensure I don't forget the smells, the sounds, the feelings that I had when I saw this thing or this place. And yet sometimes I take the shot and it fails to carry with it the sense I wanted it to. This is what I want to develop more. I have to admit I once took photos simply for me, shots of things and places I loved or spotted and never wanted to forget. Some places and things I wanted to share with my family. Now since I have begun to blog and have had thoughts of having a slightly more commercial aspect to my work I have lost some of the passion and the delight I once had. I feel like I spend so much time on this hobby, I don't work and my husband has always encouraged and supported anything I have enjoyed doing. Yet now that we are empty nesters I feel like I should somehow be contributing to the income we have. I have begun to take photos and then look at them with thoughts of selling them some how some where. I don't like that at all. It has taken the joy and the simplicity out of photography for me. So I have to take a step back I think and just love what I do again, forget the selling aspect and just get back to grass roots again.

I really don't like shooting pictures of people much, at least not portrait style shots, I much prefer the candid style of taking people photos. I don't like arranging people in photos, it makes me feel bossy and annoying. I prefer flowers, macro anything, and I love doorways, gates and lane ways, they make me wonder where they lead, who lives there, what goes on behind those doors.