Learning about lighting

I read Kal's blog and Karen's blog and all the while I'm totally jealous of....er, I mean inspired by their photography. It is such a practical artform and while I haven't got access to either of their creative brains to pester them for suggestions, pointers or just to completely hijack their skills, I DO have access to Chapters which is where I got the photography books mentioned in this post. I figured that since I live in a place that is blanketed in darkness for the better part of the winter months (yup, I'm that far north) that the book I'd glean the most immediately useful stuff from would be the Lighting Book. In the first chapter, they covered a lot of general stuff pertaining to aperture, shutter speed, white balance and ISO. I decided to go and try to make great photos in full sun yesterday afternoon. The best photos happened when Seth found the beat-up old rope swing behind our house.


Too bad about the shadow on his face in this one. I love his gentle expression.


This is, without a doubt my fave from all 141 photos that I took yesterday. He was having the time of his life!