Your Baby in Pictures

For my birthday, per my request, I received a few photography books. I never heard of this one, but I received one titled “Your Baby in Pictures.” So far, it’s a pretty dumbed-down book which would be awesome for beginners. I haven’t learned much from reading it thus far, but it is filled with a bunch of pictures which do inspire me.

Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition

I also received the book “Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition” which came highly recommended to me by various photography friends of mine and also through the Reddit subreddit of photography. I haven’t cracked it open just yet, but I am looking forward to sneaking a peak inside of it and seeing what things I can learn from it.

I’m still fairly new to digital SLR cameras, so I’m eager to learn as much as I can… Especially before this baby makes their appearance! I want to be able to capture precious moments in baby’s life as well as our daughter’s and her transition into becoming a big sister while learning to share mommy and daddy with someone new.

Exposure is an easy concept to understand, but a hard concept to master. If you look at the first photos I took with my DSLR, they are nothing short of embarrassing! The exposure is all wrong, I use multiple automatic settings (including post-image processing settings), and I was determined to only use manual focus.

My current pictures have improved, but I still go a little berzerker with post-processing. I tend to enjoy over-saturating the images and tinting them odd colours… In the moment, I enjoy the effect then afterward when I look at them with fresh eyes, I find myself wondering “What the heck was I thinking?” Live and learn!

One of these days, I will have better intuition as a photographer and my photos will have their own style. Until then, my pictures remain very inconsistent, but I do luck out on some pretty good shots. Good shots that need improvement, but good shots none-the-less.

The last book I received is called “Skin” It has a ridiculously long subtitle to it, but I won’t bore you with that! The book is all about photographing skin the right way… I imagine there will be a lot of information on proper use of flash and editing images the images are taken. I’ll be reading this one last.

With all these books, I’m torn! I have a handful of midwife books I’ve been waiting to read through before the baby comes, but I’ve been lazy. Oh-so-lazy! I hope to at least read through one or two Ina May books. She is a superhero! There are a few video lectures from her on youtube that are worth watching.

Photography Books