The gathering.

Back in March, we had a gathering of mums of bubs the same age as my daughter (and various older siblings). They were around 15 months old at the time, so it was a challenge to take a photo before their attention had already gone elsewhere.

A had been upset in the photos I took of her earlier, but then she decided to strike some very cute poses for me.








B and W also practiced their charm on us!

(Obviously they are some of the older brothers and not 15 months old!)

Summer swimming for my son.

In the warmer months we had the opportunity to give A lots of time in the pool.

He loves water, and we were excited to see him learn to float independently with the floaties.

Before we headed to the pool, managed to capture the photo on the left, I love the dreamy eyes.

A was 2 years and 11 months old in these photos.

Portraits of my daughter.

As part of the Morguefile course I was following, we covered the topic of lighting for portraits. I used my daughter as the test subject, setting her up in a room with just the one window for a light source. I took heaps of photos, testing different angles.


The photo below on the right is using a mirror to reflect the light on to her. Was also great for getting her attention.

H was almost 14 months old in these photos.

More practise.

I was running out of volunteers to photograph, so had to cast a wider net.


I found C via on online forum, she wanted some more recent photos of her daughter O.




























This was my first time taking photos of someone I had just met, so I was quite nervous! It was a good learning experience though, and we ended up with some cute photos.

Practise.

The next to let me practise on them, was S and her son B.

I also had a bit of fun putting a compilation of the photos together. It's a nice way to include some of the fun shots, which weren't necessarily "right" on their own.

J also joined us at the practise session,
with her sons O and G.

I didn't do nearly as well with these
photos unfortunately, lots of dark
and/or out of focus shots.

G was a performer though, smiling
and playing up to the camera.

It was time to photograph people.

I finally became bored with photographing the plant life in our garden, and decided to try photographing people. This is trickier, because firstly you have to find people willing to pose, and secondly they have to be patient while you play around with all the settings to work out what you are doing.





Luckily, E & T agreed to pose for me. As I said, it was my first time taking photos of people, other than my kids, so I was pleased with the result. I wasn't entirely happy with my lenses though, and ordered a 50mm 1.8 for a sharper image and to get better photos in low light situations.

I got a new camera. Well an old camera.

I had to return the Canon 400D, so I went in search of my own camera.

I ended up with a second hand Canon 350D, with the twin kit lens (wide angle 18-55 and telephoto 75-300).

Of course I had to take some more photos in the garden for comparison.

Passiflora

Weed (of some sort)

Raindrops on pawpaw leaf