Welcome to Manual

For awhile now, everyone in the photography group I am in, have been talking about shooting in manual and how it's so great. I never really thought much of it and figured my shots were just as good in the sport setting. Well, yesterday, I realized just how WRONG I have been!! I was just messing around with my camera yesterday while the pups were napping and I realized how hazy my photos were turning out. Just to see how things would change, I switched my camera into manual mode and quickly saw just how different the shots looked when I was actually using the right settings!! It's safe to say, once you go manual, it's very hard to go back!

The only problem with manual shooting is movement….as long as you have a quick enough shutter speed, the blur isn't noticeable. However, when you start needing a tripod…that's when manual becomes sort of a pain. So sometimes, shooting with the settings on your camera can help you get a shot especially when the situation you're in, isn't ideal for a tripod to stabilize the camera.

Enjoy the selection below. These might be some of my favorite photos I have ever taken, or at least in a long time. The black and white one of Lumen and Hannah sleeping is probably my favorite from the bunch. Really captures just how sweet Lumen really is. Enjoy!

The Calm Before the Storm

It has been one of those days where the rain has come and gone. Anyone with dogs really dreads rain because that means our precious babies are cooped up in the house all day. Luckily we had a break in the rain earlier and I was able to drag the girls outside to play ball and release some of their bottled up energy.

Before we went outside, I started taking some photos inside since the lighting wasn't awful and I wanted to take the opportunity since it doesn't come around often. Lumen (the White Shepard) was sleeping on the floor just far enough away from me that my macro lens could focus on her. She was semi sleeping but knew I was taking photos of her. The best part about Lu is that she tolerates me taking her photo and rarely moves! I had a vision of what I wanted to capture, but it just wasn't really working out. Of course once I was about to probably get the shot I wanted, Hannah decided she needed to lay near Lumen and was totally in the way of my amazing shot! Of course I couldn't make Hannah move because then Lumen would move, so I had to be creative! I ended up shooting from the couch over Hannah to get to Lumen behind her. Luckily the photos turned out pretty well.

Remember how I wanted to do a before and after shot? Well last time I tried the photo really wasn't the best to do that with but I think I still got the point across. This time however, I have the perfect photo for a before and after! Since I was shooting over Hannah to get to Lumen, part of Hannah's back was in the shot I had of Lumen in the corner. In the camera the photo looked kind of cool, but once I opened it in Photoshop, I realized that it looked like I had a black blob in the corner of my photo….UGH! Luckily Photoshop is so amazing and has all these great tools to help get rid of that kind of stuff!

Before 

After 

As you can see in the photos, I cloned out the black and made it look like the floor. Unfortunately, this is not my best work with cloning….now that they are side by side I can really see it. However, I worked on it for so long that I just had to move on.

The rest of the photos below are also from this afternoon. Enjoy the selection below. Check out the crazy big paws Lu has below too.

Let's Catch Up

Wow! I can not believe it has been over a month since I last blogged! The even sadder part about that, is I really haven't picked up my camera in that time frame either. Last month I did take some family photos, but not everyone is on social media so I didn't post them to protect their privacy!

So much has happened this last month! School started, the weather started getting amazingly nice, and the pups have been going through some intense training. Because of all of this going on, I haven't had much time to pick up my camera! No excuses, I know!! So, here is my post that is LONG over due! I finally got two days in a row off from work and school so I decided I better get my camera out and use the time to get some photos.

Lately, I have felt that when I take photos of the dogs, they all turn out the same. Same photo, different day. So, I have joined a couple of photography groups on Facebook that let photographers from all walks of experience share their photos and have strangers comment on them. Unfortunately, since I haven't taken photos in so long, I haven't had the chance to really post on there. Luckily that can change now!

For a while now, I have wanted to do a before and after part on this. However, I never really had a photo that showed the amount of work I did to it. I decided to just bite the bullet and try it on here. The photos below aren't the ideal photo for a before and after, but there is enough of a difference to show.

Before 

After 

For these photos, there is really only one setting that I changed. The setting Levels, I upped the lighting and created contrast with the blacks. Instead of the photo being more gray, there is now a contrast between the different colors. 

Often most of the photos taken only need a little adjustment. However, sometimes I get a photo that needs a lot of work and I often really enjoy the challenge. However, when I started taking these photos, I started taking these photos at about noon when the sun was way to bright. The first half of these photos have awful lighting and aren't even editable! Later that day, I went back out and got much better results with the lighting. Enjoy the rest of the collection below: