Okay, that’s not really my New Year’s resolution. Somehow everything I want to say has recently been magically condensed to 140 characters or less. Because my attention span wasn’t short enough to begin with. Darn you twitter and facebook. So to start 2010, I present you with a picture of my whole family, taken at our Christmas celebration this past weekend.

View Large, On Black

The problems that stand out most in my mind are:

• Logistics and Time Constraints – I simply didn’t have the time I wanted to put together these shots. Everything seemed rushed. I didn’t really anticipate the craziness of walking in the door from work and trying to set up and shoot the weekly produce picture with kids were underfoot in the 30-45 minutes I had before dinner. Additionally, Kate was sometimes needing some of the produce we got for that week to cook dinner.
• Lighting – I was extremely frustrated with the lighting in my house. Our house doesn’t get a lot of natural light, and the little we do get is difficult to work with. I was having all sorts of issues with exposure and white balance that I just didn’t have the time to mess with in the short period I had to take the pictures (see item one).
• Equipment – When I started this project, I fully expected to be purchasing the beginning of my strobist-inspired lighting equipment. I planned on having at least one strobe, one lightstand, and one umbrella with which to light. Er, yeah. . . about that. We had a couple of unexpected expenses this summer. Air conditioning, medical bills, auto stuff, hi-def television. . . you know, all essentials. What’s that? YOU try saying no to your wife when she tells you that it’s okay for you to go buy a replacement TV. I mean really, the GALL of that woman! Kidding hon, TOTALLY kidding. As an aside, now that football season has started any buyers remorse I had over that TV has been magically cured. Funny, that.

  So anyway, the flash equipment purchase got put off indefinitely, and I haven’t been experimenting with any of the light stuff I wanted to experiment with.

• A Generally Disappointing CSA Experience – In general, I have been a little disappointed by the quality of the produce we’ve gotten from the CSA. The fruit has generally been very good, but I have not been thrilled with the veggies, and we have gotten a couple of items that have been downright dreadful (the green beans from a couple of weeks ago qualify). Being not super-enthusiastic about the produce we were receiving made me even less motivated to take pictures.

  That being said, we LOVE our trips to the farm to pick our own produce, and the farm itself is a really fun place to visit. I’m not sure if we’ll do the CSA again next year. We still have a month or so of late summer and fall produce to go, so I’m going to withhold final judgement until it is all said and done.

So as of now, my photography goal is to get caught up processing all the pics that I’m backed up on by a couple (almost 3?! Ack!) months. I’m not even considering another “project” until I get caught up on the family shots.

This is an excellent, easy-to-read introduction to getting the correct exposure from a DSLR, and is the perfect follow-up to my 2008 Lessons in Photography post.

Find and Be Thankful for Generous Friends – If you have the opportunity to borrow equipment from a friend, DO IT. Lou Ann was tremendously helpful in encouraging my addiction hobby by lending me her old DSLR, and a couple of prime lenses. I use the 50mm f/1.8 prime as my main lens. It is fabulous.

Good Equipment Helps, But It’s Not a Magic Wand – “Wow, you have a great camera.” is something I’ve heard several times about some of my photos. It is simultaneously rewarding (because I know somebody liked the photo) and frustrating (because they don’t know all the work that went into shooting and post-processing). I mean, you should see all of the TERRIBLE pictures I take with my great camera. I only post the ones that qualify at least as “mediocre”.

Learn to Purge – Speaking of all those terrible pictures I take, I’ve learned to keep them from ever seeing the light of the Internet. I take probably 10 times as many photos as I post, possibly more. Many are deleted right off due to poor focus, exposure, composition, etc. It’s amazing what can look in focus on the camera’s LCD only to be total crap on the monitor. If I wasn’t also shooting for posterity, I’d probably trim even more photos out of the pictures I take from various events.

Learn (or Teach Yourself) The Basics – Learn about composition, exposure, focus, etc. Take a class (I need to take my own advice on this one), or teach yourself. There are so many amazing resources on the Internet.

Get Out of Auto – That little green box on the dial on your camera? Never use it. No, seriously. NEVER USE IT. When I use the 50mm prime, I almost always shoot in aperture priority (Av mode on your dial), which gives me some awesome control over depth of field. Getting out of auto gives you so much control over your photos, allowing you to turn your photographs into art instead of snapshots. Art. Right. I should work on that.

Ditch the Built In Flash Whenever Possible

The built in flash on cameras has its place, and most of the time, it’s down and not being used. Do something, ANYTHING to use available light instead of popping that flash up. As soon as you let that sucker fire, you’re practically guaranteed flat, boring, snapshot quality images. Open the aperture, increase the ISO, slow the shutter speed down (and put your camera on a tripod) – do whatever it takes. I’m still struggling with this one as the lighting in my house is awful, and kids are FAST little buggers that are constantly moving. I take lots of blurry pictures. I’m cheating with the picture below, as it was shot with an external flash (remotely triggered with a PocketWizard) on loan from a friend. See the first item about borrowing equipment!

So get out there in 2009 and keep shooting! And more importantly, keep posting them on Flickr, Facebook, SmugMug, or whatever your site of choice happens to be. I constantly learn from and am inspired by the work of many photographers on the net.

The Christmas 2008 photo session went well, and I think we got a picture we were happy with to use for our Christmas cards this year. A friend of mine was kind enough to lend me some lighting equipment (2 strobes, a reflective umbrella, and a light stand), and I was able to set up a little studio in our house. I took a metric ton of pictures, and there are probably a dozen or so I’d be perfectly happy sending out with our family’s Christmas cards. This flickr set is the best of the outtakes (view as a slideshow). Enjoy!