jar of life: A learning experience

Last weekend one of my closest friends asked me to take photographs of her beautiful 2 1/2 year old daughter. She liked the photograph that I entered in the Royal Commonwealth Photography competition and really wanted some nice photos of her baby girl.

Now as a very amateur photographer - I jumped at the opportunity. Afterall I said I was going to take the reins of photography and move forward. Another challenge :)

Now we decided to meet up on the island's boardwalk located on the South Coast. It had been raining for two days straight and by the afternoon it was still overcast but later there was an amazing orange glow - got to love a good sunset.

Again I used my 50mm 1.8 lens.

What I love about this lens is that I can get the 1.8 aperture - this is depth of field on a camera (it allows a small area of the photo in focus and the rest of the photo (in my case the background) to be blurry). For some reason I enjoy photographing faces with a small/short aperture - I think it is because you automatically focus on the face because there is no/little distraction in the background.

What you need to know is that this lens does not allow you to zoom in and out because it is a fixed lens. This is a challenge because you physically have to move to be able to get your desired frame of the subject.

So down the line I will need to upgrade and find a more versatile lens.

But you be the judge. Take a look at what I got!

Kayleigh (blurry background)

Kayleigh and Mummy

Now one of the things I learnt that day - when taking photographs of children especially ones that are shy in the beginning (most will be like deers in a headlight) - you need some props. Luckily, Jackie came to the rescue with a fantastic black and white umbrella. The umbrella changed Kayleigh's demeanour. She was now playing and not getting her photograph taken by mum's weird friend.

Thanks Jacks for the umbrella (it added so much to the photos) - I will know now that props are necessary. Because PROPS = DISTRACTION.

Somebody was excited!! :)

Then there were baby turtles being rescued from the shore (poor little things were going in the opposite direction of the sea) that was the next distraction.