Taking Control - warning TONS of pixs

Before I got married and had children, back in the days of film cameras, I loved photography. I took classes at the art institute and would spend my weekends roaming the city in search of the perfect picture and then spend hours upon hours in the dark room. I LOVED IT!! Then life took over as did the ease of digital photography. I bought a nice camera but only used it in Auto mode. I have decided enough -- I am determined to learn how to use my camera. No more relying solely on Auto.

Yesterday, the kids and I headed out back to "play" -- them on the swing set, me with my camera. Here are a few of my fave shots. For anyone with camera knowledge...feel free to critique, I won't know how to get better without your input! None of these have had any editing done what-so-ever.

We started with some simple swinging...I am so used to "sports mode" that it was difficult to find the right settings to capture the movement but I think I fared ok.



Next, we moved to jumping off of the swing. The two older kids insisted I get pixs of them in teh air...who was I to argue? This first one isn't perfect by any means but I liked that N's face is in focus (and intense) where the rest of his body is a bit blurred.


These ones are more focused shots....not good shots of my kids mind you but at least I figured out how to freeze them in the frame without blur.




Then I had to go and get some simple shots of S. She is quite photogenic when she wants to be!! I love the warmth of these pixs (had set the AWB to cloudy)....




That was a lot of pixs, I know. I will share more scrap stuff tomorrow -- did a layout tonight but ironically, too lazy to take a picture.