Why are all my pictures so bright?

Lately you may (or may not) have noticed my pictures are extremely bright. You may be asking your self, "I thought Michelle was taking photography lessons?" Well to answer your inner thoughts, I am taking lessons! My photos may appear to be getting worse not better but that is simply because I am implementing some things I am learning and do not have the proper computer soft ware to work on my images after taking them. I hope to be getting the soft ware soon, but for now its just to expensive.

So what is it I am doing to my images? Well when I take pictures now I am purposely over exposing them, just enough. I have recently learned about the grey scale and the histogram on my camera. Understanding shades of grey has allowed me to better understand how pictures are formed. Then when I learned what a histogram on my camera is and how it works I was able to start taking better pictures. Well pictures that will appear better after I work on them in the digital dark room (once I get my hands on this program!)

Humm, how do I even begin to explain the histogram? http://www.livingroom.org.au/photolog/tips/histogram_tips.php Ok just click on that link, it will take you to the webs ten best histogram sites. But what I was taught that you may or may not get from these sites is this, and listen up close because this will change your life in photography from here on out. The histogram has several columns,all the columns equal one hundred percent of your picture. But the histogram is not visually divided equally. The very last column on your histogram equals 50...yes FIFTY percent of your pictures lighting data! The first several columns combined equal the other fifty percent.

So when you take a picture (now get your camera set up, so that you see your histogram with every picture you take!) you must make sure that some of the data is read on that very last column on your histogram. Other wise you have lost 50...yes FIFTY percent of your data.

By over exposing your pictures just enough you will push your histogram to the right and now you have 100 percent of your pictures data to work with in the digital dark room.

It took me 3...yes three hours to learn this (complete with pictures, drawings and hand on work.) All under the guidance of a professional. Not because I am slow (well that may be part of it, lol) but because as he put it, this is the most important bit of information that a photographer can learn. So if I have royally confused you in the ten minutes it has taken me to type this, please don't give up. Just do some more research and learn how to use your histogram and learn to push it to the right.

As soon as I get my computer soft ware I will post before and after pictures to show the effects of all this.

Photography (a look back)

A few months ago I finally got serious in my quest to better understand my camera and photography in general. Turns out there is so much to learn. I have loved taking pictures my whole life. When I think back to my childhood I can picture (no pun intended)what was probably my first camera. It was a black camera with a chunky orange buton. There was nothing more exciting then getting pictures back from the developer (aka: the grocery store.)

Then came high school and I was so excited to take photography as a class. When I close my eyes I can still smell the solutions we used to develop our film, what a sour smell indeed! Sadly I didn't do so well in that class. The teacher was a jolly old soul and never cared one way or the other how foolish we acted in the dark room, he was certainly a laid back old guy. I loved the hands on nature of photography but when we had to buckle down and get into the book learning I am sure I was the first in class to drop my head to the table for a little after noon nap.

A few years later I bought my first digital camera. I paid a couple hundred bucks for this monstrous creation, and was so baffled by it that I soon sold it to some young guy with a little extra cash in his pocket. I guess at that time I didn't get the whole "digital" thing. I wanted to get my pictures developed and hold them in my hands. I don't even think I had a computer at that time, so I wouldn't have had a place to store them.

After selling that digital camera I went straight to the store and bought my first single lens reflex camera. It was a canon rebel and was not digital. I had more fun with that camera. I traveled all over Europe snapping pictures of unsuspecting people and a few boring old land marks along the way. As a side note: maybe I should think of becoming a paparizi...lol! Being able to manually focus my lens and be able to zoom in and out was such a liberating feeling, after using a basic (10 dollar) 35 mm camera my whole life. I held onto that camera for about eight years. I actually just sold her at a garage sale not that long ago. During the time of owning her I also have owned a handful of pocket size digital cameras.

A few months ago Pat got sick of hearing me complain about the inabilities of our little digital cameras and told me he would like to buy me a nice camera, and that he would research it for me. "Ahh, NO" I very politely said. I knew I wanted a canon. I knew I wanted something like my rebel but even better. After a bit of a search we decided on the Canon D40, Pat got on line and ordered me my digital SLR camera.

I have had such a blast documenting every little thing with this camera. If its in or near my house I have a picture of it. Pat is always laughing at me. Blah blah blah, long story. I started this post with the intention of telling what all I have been learning in my private photography sessions. I guess I needed to spew out the history before I delve into all this other info.

I ♥ faces: Completely Candid

I was looking at my friend Lisa's blog: http://www.whatfeedsmysoul.com/2009/09/photo-wishes.html and she was taking part in yet another cool web contest. This contest is taking place over at http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/

I love taking pictures and am especially fond of taking candid pictures. So I thought I would go ahead and try this out as well. I am sort of bummed because I have several awesome pictures I took overseas of people, people not quite like you see here. I have an amazing picture of a gypsy women and her baby and beautiful picture of a group of very old men hashing it out on the streets of Italy, but alas I am a computer failure and have no idea how to scan them into my computer (these were taken pre-digital.)

Here is a picture I took just a few weeks ago, and has quickly become one of my favorite pictures. We were on vacation in Dana Point, California. Thomas found this great tree and decided to explore all of its potential. I just love the look of pure joy and satisfaction on his sweet little face! I think if you click on the picture (and any picture on my blog) that it will blow it up so you can see it better, enjoy!