Well maybe not a charm but definitely on the road there...

This past weekend I had the awesome opportunity to meet the Coppin family.  They are just stunning, every square inch of them. Whitney, I meant it when I said you need more kids, you and Cam make beautiful babies!!!

Whitney selected a location that I was so excited about.  I noticed it only a couple of weeks before when the fall leaves started singing with all their glory.  Luckily we still had lots of color and it provided the perfect fall backdrop.

What I changed up this time:

• My Confidence - I knew that while I still made huge mistakes with the McCrackens, I also made great strides.  I knew what I was doing wrong and was able to course correct.
• My Lens - Portrait photographers usually have 3-4 favorite lenses for their sessions.  35mm 1.4, 85mm 1.2, the favorite 24-70mm 2.8and sometimes a 50mm.  Well with the exception of the 50, these lenses can run between $1K and $2K each.  So... I've been using my wide angle 28-135mm because it encompassed all of the above in focal lengths and was a zoom, but decided to give my 50mm 1.4 a try.  It does not have some of the creative options of the 85mm but it's a great lens and I actually have it!!
• Manual Exposure Setting - Getting back to my roots, and setting my camera back to manual exposure offers total control.  In other semi control settings AV and TV, you set either the Aperture or Shutter speed respectively, and the camera will automatically select the other to give your proper exposure.  Based upon learnings at workshops with local landscape artists I've gotten lazy and into the habit of keeping my exposure setting on AV and letting the camera decide the appropriate shutter speed for me.
• I was taught using manual mode and I should have stayed there.  If you would like to know more about where I learned see the following post I wrote about my life-changing experience with Jeffrey Rupp and the Denver School of Photography in my very first post.. http://www.drakophotography.com/blog/2013/10/hello-and-thanks-for-stopping-by I start a new class with Jeffrey in a couple of weeks, can't wait write about it!

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What I still need to work on:

• I absolutely still need to work, work, work on nailing my exposure.  I promised myself that I would try to look at the histogram when I checked a photo on the back of my screen just to let me know if I was in the ballpark but I got too caught up in the moment.
• I also promised myself I would zoom in to the max and check the clarity/focus of the picture and again, caught up in the moment of the session, I didn't.
• Composition - Have to learn to really look at the picture I'm taking to make sure the scene is as good as it can be.  There there isn't stuff lying around, odd positions or their aren't weird things going on, like in the 2 photos below where we have trees growing out of people's heads.
• And I still need a bunch more poses, but the ones we used for this shoot worked well.

At the end of the day, at 2 dozen or so, I was able to provide them with double the photos that I was able to give the last 2 families.

Now my confidence level is even higher and I'm beginning to think I may not have to stay in IT for the rest of my career.. I may have options ;)

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