...You gotta love the Family.

I gotta give props to the family. They will never complain as long as you are taking good pictures. And luck would have it, no bad pics were taken. The opportunity shown at the left is my cousin-once-removed Audrey's baptism. Here i was able to put my playing to actual use. I was gathering much knowledge from the Strobist blog and a better bounce card website. The later explains my fascination with that big white thing on top of my flash. Once i saw the results of the bounce card - there was no going back.


This was great experience for me. First, i was able to gain some familiarity taking pictures in a church and practice trying to get some action pictures of the ceremony. I started to understand the value of large aperture lenses as the Church was relatively dark and there was a lot of movement. I was also able to get a creative shot of my cousin Laura and Audrey with the Crucifix in the back ground.


The previous day was Audrey's cousin Sophie's first birthday and there i was able to play a bunch with lighting, aperture and fast moving kids. The entire family came in town for these two events so i got some great pictures of everyone that was at attendance.

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To see the pictures of these events click here.

The monumental first post

Well... I would like to start off with a little history of my experiences with my camera and give you an idea of what i am working with.

Lets start this off with a glance into the past. I remember about six years ago, i was at my yearly family gathering where i stumbled upon my cousin Mike's ultra compact Pentax Optio S. He allowed me to play with this bundle of joy and it sparked a flame of inspiration and imagination in my head. And then a couple months later i just so happened to get one of my own. For months i was taking pictures left anf right. Once i became familiar and comfortable with my new found glory, i was starting to yearn for more.

Then enter my Canon Digital XT. New doors opened. I learned fast (sometimes at the expsense of Erin). I wanted to try new techniques but i needed some new glass (lenses). After my fourth lens, i started to realize some of the limitations of the XT. I did a lot of research for an upgrade and there was an awesome rebate going on witha Canon. So i went up to Schillers (a great photography resource for anyone in St Louis) and low and behold, i found out that the rebate was doubled with a purchase of a lens, so, i got a Canon 30D and a 50mm f1.4 lens. My ideas and thoughts seemed to be endless. But as you will see, i had much to learn.