Digital Photography

This weekend I was lucky enough to take a class on digital photography, taught by a very talented local artist, Lennon Michalski.  I have always loved taking photographs.  I remember taking over my parents' camera whenever we would go anywhere, because of course I could take better pictures!  As I've grown up, many of my "big" gifts have been cameras (thanks to my parents for indulging me!).  But as much as I've loved photography, and as much as we have invested in cameras, I've never had any instruction on how to take better photographs.  I'm a hands-on learner, so just reading a manual doesn't always cut it for me. 

So when my mom found this opportunity for me through UK, I didn't want to miss it.  We spent about 2.5 hours in the lecture room for instruction on ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, and then we went out to the Arboretum for practice in the field.  We had a lunch break in between, and I'm pretty sure that during that hour, everything I thought I learned flew right out of my head!  When I walked up to the first subject to take a photo, I had NO IDEA what to do.  Honestly, I couldn't even take a picture in focus!  Finally I just decided to take several pictures of the same thing using different settings, and that helped me tremendously. 

I don't think for a minute that I took excellent photos, but I learned, and that was important for me.  I look forward to taking thousands more photos, and hopefully I'll continue to learn and grow in this area.  Below are just a few results of the day.  I'll spare you the out-of-focus shots!!

eta: These weren't edited in any way, because I just wanted to focus on what I did, not what my photograph could look like.