80-20 rule

I am realizing 80% of my time is being spent on things I really don't like...the business side of photography. In order to get the business off of the ground, it's unavoidable I suppose. Hopefully when I get all the ducks in order, I can focus more on taking pictures.

Carmen

So much to learn…

When I decided that I wanted to do more with photography, I decided to learn Photoshop CS2.  Since I am not making a living doing this, I have not upgraded to Photoshop CS4.  If I may lament within a lament, I like latest and the greatest.  With photography, that seems like a bottomless pit.  Anyways, I spent months learning CS2 and I still feel that I am only scratching the surface.  I am decent when it comes to photo editing but it is time consuming.  So, enter Lightroom 2.3.  I find that 90% of what I need to do in photo editing can be done with Lightroom.  Photoshop and Lightroom play nicely too so it’s easy going back and forth.  But honestly, I rarely have to go into Photoshop these days.  It’s been about two weeks since I’ve started using and learning Lightroom and I feel I have a pretty good grasp of it.  Unfortunately, not all is smooth sailing.  Lightroom seems to be a bit more resource intensive and my laptop doesn’t like working so hard.  Lazy bumb!!  Wait, wait!!  I didn’t mean it; don’t crash.  Good laptop.  So, I am back at the edge of the bottomless pit.  I am looking down the pit and wondering, “Should I jump?”  

EV

Sometimes, I get these pictures where the subject is too dark and I just filed it away in my head as the price I pay for using the matrix metering.  So I would switch the camera from matrix to spot metering and then take the picture again.  This worked for me but there is a another way to get a correct exposure as I was reminded today.  Exposure Compensation.  I could exercise my right index finger and slide the EV.  Using the EV function was something I avoided early in my learning process because I wanted to minimize the complexity of taking a photo.  Time to add it to the list of things to think about when shooting. 

Making progress

Once I found out we were having a girl, I knew I needed to step up my level of photography.  I wanted my photos to look professional which led to many hours of reading, looking at photos, learning Photoshop and becoming proficient with my camera equipment.  The journey is ongoing but I wanted to take a step back and look where I started.

Image on the left was taken on Christmas of 2007.

Image on the right was taken on March, 2009.  

Why even have Millie Art blog?

I always enjoyed taking pictures but never really felt comfortable being in front of the lens. That enjoyment was more like a passing fancy. Once I found out we were expecting, passing fancy became a hobby. Now the hobby has taken a life of its own. New goal is to take the hobby and turn it into a business. I would be happy with a part time gig that could pay for itself. So, why write a blog? I just wanted to record all the things I am doing to become a pro I guess. Who knows, maybe someone will find my ramblings and blunders to be useful.