Easter Pics, Take One!

I really enjoy learning to use my camera.  These days, however, I don't get a lot of "easy" opportunities to do so.  Toddlerhood requires a lot more of a parent's attention, dontchaknow.  They are totally mobile, and they are totally going to go play with the lawnmower if you're not watching them carefully.

So, while I may yearn for those idyllic photos of the children in their holiday frocks, delicately supported in the background by beautiful foliage, the reality is different.  What would actually happen is I'd spend a very sweaty and stressful 30 minutes taking eleventy hundred pictures of which only three would be partially usable, and then I'd have to wash the baby's dress, most assuredly, before Sunday.  Probably the boy's clothes too.

No thank you!

So, I took some photos inside the house this morning, BUT (to my husband's chagrin, I'm sure!), I'm going to have to redo them.  Not because they're just AWful, because they're not.  But, because of my dear son who took a photo of Poodle, and reminded me of a big mistake that I made!  You get to have a little photography lesson at the end of my shameless posting of our Easter Chicks.  :-)

And now, here's your lesson:

Tooter's pic, which is SOOC (straight out of camera, or, no editing applied), and he was still using the manual camera settings that I had been using:

Can you see the difference?  Disregard the exposure issues, because Poodle was in a different place in the room.  But do you see how much more alive she looks?  Can you see why?

Because the primary light source was not facing her straight head-on.  She was angled towards the light source.  She has all the lovely shadowing on the side of her face that gives her dimension and "real life'ness".

Now go back and review my pictures.  They're not awful, but do you see how they look flatter?  Less vibrant in terms of bringing out the reality of the person?  The light source was facing them head-on.

Whoops.  :-D

Now, if I don't get a decent chance to take their pictures again, I'm not going to just CRY about it.  (Maybe whine a bit, but certainly not CRY).  But this was such a good reminder that the positioning of the light is almost as important as the quality of the light.  Yay for photography lessons from the 5 year old!  (Who really doesn't know what he did, but I'm about to tell him.  School never stops, even on our day off).

May your Resurrection celebrations be beautiful tomorrow!

We love you!