New Blog

I started a new blog just with photography pictures on it!

Most of them will be repeats from what is on here, but a great way to

show just my photos.

www.photographybysbeth.blogspot.com

My First Passover!

Well, I survived my first and second Seder.

I went Monday night and Tuesday night.

Monday we read from a very traditional book and took turns

going around the table.

Although the book was read right to left and was in Hebrew,

there was an English version underneath.

Of course when it got to me the first time around my reading was

filled with cities and names- which means mine was

pretty much still Hebrew.

Oh typical Sarah fashion, I destroyed it.

(It could have been worse- like my first Catholic

service. I'll save that story for another date.)

It did take a few minutes for my face to return to its normal

hue, but I survived. Tuesday night was pretty much a children's version

and I'd say my readings went much smoother.

Don't worry, that isn't what we ate, just the symbolism plate.

On the move!

Madison is Crawling

Luckily, She still loves the camera and will stop and pose for me.

I had this idea to put her on a mirror and see if I could get some good shots.

She loved it!

It was very easy to get her to pose on the mirror shots.

The hard part was keeping myself out of the pictures.

Of course now that we are crawling- all of my picture ideas

were only entertaining for about a minute a piece. So, we only got

about one good shot per idea.

Waving at Mommy....

Clapping for Madison....

Trying to eat grass

Laughing at Aunt Sarah!

Gone Fishing!

Mia LOVES to fish.

Loves it!

She thinks that every lure is thrown for her pure enjoyment

and makes plenty of amazing pug sounds the entire time.

Of course Darla loves it too!



Action shot of the pure excitement when the lure is being thrown.

And this one really just explains it all!

This is what happens when a pug runs at full speed.

Photography Lessons

I went to my first photography class last Tuesday at Capital Filmworks,

which is where I bought my camera.

Three free classes came with the camera

- although anyone can attend- they are $40 a class.

I had no idea what I was walking into.

It was the beginners class with maybe 20 of us,

although around 35 had signed up.

I will admit a lot of it I had read in the manual, online or even from other's blogs

but I also learned much more.

It was from 6-9.

I walked in thinking there is no way

this thing is going to last three hours,

oh but it did and I loved every second of it.

If that had been a class for school, I would have had the worst

A.D.D. and it would have taken all I had to make it for the entire class.

Last night I went for my second class on a beautiful spring evening and I was

the only one to show up. I will admit I almost skipped to go play outside with

Searcy and Mia, but I decided to stick it out.

I figured he would reschedule the class,

but he taught me one on one.

I ended up getting the next 2 sessions- 6 hours of photography lessons

in 2 hours with undivided attention. It was awesome!

I went home and of course played with my camera for another hour or two

and took the below pictures.

They may not seem really any different than some of my previous

pictures I have posted, but they are.

Here is a small overview for you.

There is:

ISO- How sensitive the lense is to light

Aperture- How much light the lense is letting in

Shutter Speed- How long the light is allowed in

White Balance- Has to do with the colors the lense is picking up

Most of my previous pictures were either taken in auto mode or AV mode.

Auto mode does everything mentioned above for you.

AV mode I pick the aperture and the camera does the rest.

Aperture is what allows you to get the blurry backgrounds of the photos,

so I had done a ton of googling about this and that was the only mode I felt comfortable with.

There are other modes where I chose one thing and the camera does the rest, but

I wasn't even comfortable with those before.

The pictures taken below were taken in Manual Mode.

That means I chose everything mentioned above

plus additional items such as metering.

Metering helps me chose which section of the picture I want the most light.

I also decided whether I needed a flash or not.

Because I learned that flashes can be used even on the sunniest days

to control shadows.

How low you can get your aperture depends on the lense you have.

The best ones for aperture don't zoom in or out at all so you have to move your body

in and out. That will be my next purchase.

I also want to get photoshop elements so I can do more adjusting

after the photos are taken.

I would really love just Photoshop but it is way expensive so I will settle with elements.

Sorry for the big photography lesson, just a way for me to keep up with all my notes.

Aren't the flowers gorgeous?

All the pictures were taken from the bouquet Rocky had waiting for me when I got home from Eufaula on Sunday.

I'm probably in trouble for writing that.