Stroking My Ego

I mentioned before that photography is one of the hobbies I am focusing on right now. I am going to take a class starting in a couple weeks, and I want more than anything to learn about creating amazing photos.

I love being behind the lens but currently struggle sometimes with light and things coming out blurry. I know that these problems have to do with my ISO, aperture setting and shutter speed, and technically I know what needs to be done, but then actually taking the picture and having it come out well sometimes doesn't work the way I want. I don't like the Auto setting, so I try to stay away from it (specifically because I prefer not to use flash), but sometimes things come out a mess. I am also hoping this class will help me learn a bit about spot metering. Again, I know what I need to do on my camera to use this function, but I am rarely successful at this. We'll see.

Anyway, the real point of this post was to share some photos I recently edited and printed enlargements of so my mother could frame them and display them in her home. I am really excited she'd want to do such a think, and I truly love the final product. Of course she's a fan of my pictures (I suppose she may feel obligated?), but I can't help but feel a little glimmer of hope that maybe at some level photography could be in my future. She has definitely given me a little bit of an ego boost.

Here are the photos she wanted. Using photoshop I converted them to black and white then upped the contrast a big. Then, I converted the main subject back into color so they really pop. This was her idea. They are going to be framed in simple black frames with white mats, so the color will really stand out.