Family Pictures

Back in October Mr M's brother came for a visit and while he was here, we did some family pictures. I'm still figuring out how to take good pictures with our camera and when the best lighting is, but I decided to give doing our photos a go.

We did them first thing in the morning, but since we stayed at home, the sunshine had to filter through the trees. As a result, we actually started a little earlier than we should have, but we couldn't wait for the light to improve because River (and Sunshine) didn't have the patience for it.

I set the pictures up and tried to get the focus right, then handed the camera off to my BIL, who tried to stand exactly where I had been standing. For the most part it worked out, though obviously it would have been better if I'd been able to do it all and I actually knew what I was doing.

They're not perfect, but my technique is improving. I've discovered that picking good poses and making sure the background looks nice is also part of taking good photos, and not always easy.

I like this one, even if River isn't looking at the camera. I didn't get the lighting quite right (my head is in shadow), but it turned out pretty good.

This is the classic "everybody standing in a line" pose, but our height differences make it look a little weird. And since I don't weigh what I would like to, I'm a bit self conscious of how I look here. I upped the contrast a little too much when I was editing this photo, but since I'm not printing it, I'll leave it as-is.

I got this pic of River and Mr M when I was messing with my camera settings and I thought it was a cute one.

I like the background of the first two pics a lot better than the ones with the bench- there's a lot less vibrant foliage in the back yard compared to the driveway. This picture turned out good, but the background was a bit blah.

We went back to the driveway to get a couple more photos. I thought this one was funny, with both kids looking off to the side.

This one turned out better (just ignore the fact that they're sitting on the driveway!). It wasn't till I was editing the pics that I realized that having them sit on the driveway isn't the most picturesque pose. Next time we'll have to bring the bench up to the driveway to sit on and just forget the back yard.

This turned out a little blurry, but it's a really good picture of Mr M. Isn't he a handsome guy?

This one also wasn't quite in focus, but I thought it was a pretty good picture of me.

Overall, I think the pictures turned out pretty decent and I know some things to not ignore next time, so it was a good learning experience.