Photo Beginnings

Hey Cuz!

2009-01-26T15:55:00.001-08:00

A few pictures of my cousin's kids. It was a very overcast and dreary day out.

Rach & Trav

2008-12-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

My good friend Rachel and her husband Travis were married 7 years ago. I had been asking them to let me take some pictures of them and I finally had the opportunity to do so this past weekend. I showed up to their house and we walked over to a nearby park. I was nervous at first because I hadn't used my camera in over a month, but they were just so easy to work with and let me do whatever. We had fun!

Noah!

2008-11-05T16:06:00.000-08:00

My nephew, Noah, was in town not too long ago for a karate tournament. I'd never seen him do any karate because everytime I ask him to show me some moves, he gets super shy. My sister wanted me to get some action photos of him, but I didn't have any good place to sit, so all the action shots I have of him are of the back of his head, so its not like you could really tell it was him. This was the only picture I got that day of him and it was just a snapshot of him after he got his trophy for 2nd place in sparring.

Isn't he cute?! I can't believe he's about to be 9 yrs old already!!

Kidz!!

2008-10-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

I had a whirlwind weekend with a bunch of fellow photographers and their kids. I don't have any experience taking pictures of little kids, so this was definitely a huge learning experience for me. Here are some of the best ones I captured.

Tara & Jeff

2008-09-30T15:33:00.001-07:00

Tara and Jeff recently got engaged and will be getting married soon. The date hasn't been set yet, and when I asked Tara about it, her answer was "whenever my grandfather can get a flight". They'll be going to the Justice of the Peace whenever her grandfather can get to Dallas. Last month Tara asked if I could take some pictures of her and Jeff, since their parents don't have any pictures of them together. Always willing to add photos to my portfolio, I happily agreed. The only time we would all be in the same city was during a pool tournament, and its hard to set aside time to take pictures since we're always busy playing. I was able to get a handful of shots of Tara & Jeff in about 15 minutes. They are so cute and funny together.

The Heather

2008-09-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

My good friend Heather had asked me a couple of months ago to help her put a website together. She's been playing on the WPBA for a couple of years now, so she thought it was time for a website and hopefully a blog. I needed to get one decent picture of her for the main page of her website, but we ended up taking more than just one picture. I think I got a few good ones and we had a good time towards the end goofing around. There will be a heather-lloyd.com coming soon, so stay tuned!

Melinda

2008-08-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

My friend Melinda asked me to take a few pictures of her shooting pool. I wanted to use my 85mm, but I didn't have enough room. Even the 50mm wasn't enough room! :( So, I used my 28-135mm zoom, which I wasn't too happy about. This lens doesn't open wide enough for the extreme low light situation. I only took a few pictures and ended up with only 2 decent pictures. They still aren't what I would have liked, but I made lemonade.

Amanda

2008-08-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

Amanda is the perfect guinea pig, she doesn't mind being goofy and serious all at the same time! I took Amanda outside for some shots, and I was pleasantly surprised with how many good pictures I had to work with! YAY! These were all taken with my new 85mm, which I'm really diggin'! Here are my favs:

Michelle

2008-08-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

Wanting to do something a little out of the ordinary, Michelle was easily convinced to be another one of my guinea pigs. This session was the most difficult one yet because the lighting was a beast. I also wanted to use my 85mm so bad, but I didn't have enough room, so ended up using my 50mm instead. I took a ton of photos of Michelle, but only 3 of them came out anywhere decent to work with. These were my favorites:

Robyn

2008-07-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

Lately, Robyn has been travelling with her mom, Terry to pool tournaments and has followed in her mom's footsteps and also playing pool. Robyn might only be a teenager, but she can play and has a ton of potential. Watch out world!

Robyn agreed to be another one of my guinea pigs and even though I didn't get as many good pictures as I had liked, I do like the ones that did come out well.

I decided to edit this picture this way because it seems to fit Robyn's personality best:

I couldn't decide on color or black&white for this photo, so I decided to just show them both.

Tiffany "The Rock" Nelson

2008-07-28T17:55:00.001-07:00

This past weekend, I headed up to Tulsa, OK to play in the first ever Oklahoma State Women's 9-ball Championship. Some of the WPBA pros showed up to play which was cool to watch. I got to take some photos of Tiffany Nelson who is currently ranked #19. Tiffany is an incredible pool player. Tiffany has been playing pool most of her life and turned pro back in 1994 at the age of 14!! People have watched Tiffany grow up since she's been in the limelight for most of her life, and I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to photograph the beautiful woman she has become.

I took many pictures and as I'm still learning my new equipment and focusing, I got a handful of decent photos. Here are my favorites from the bunch:

The Cherry Bomb!

2008-06-22T19:18:00.001-07:00

The OB Cues Ladies 9-Ball tournament was this weekend in Richardson, TX. I wasn't 100% looking forward to it because I was travelling alone and I hadn't been playing any pool at all, but I did want to see all my friends. Amazingly enough, I actually didn't do half bad in the tournament and almost made it until Sunday. I didn't mind not making it until Sunday because I got to stay out late Saturday night with my friends and I didn't have to get up early. I showed up on Sunday to watch my friends play, and I had great conversation with my friend Samm, from Samm's Side Pocket. During our conversation that covered many topics (some of which I'll deny 100%), she agreed to be one of my guinea pigs and let me take her picture.

Right outside of the pool hall was a nice shaded corridor of the strip mall. So, we set up shop and I took a few photos of Samm. I haven't had much time to go through all the pictures, but I'm super excited with the way this one came out:

I've now had time to go thru some of the other photos, and I like how these came out, too:

Meetup ... Texas Style!

2008-06-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to meet up with some other local photographers earlier this week. I was really nervous, because they are all very talented and I'm still relatively new to all of this. We met for dinner at Duke's BBQ up in Georgetown, TX. The food was good, and the restaurant was really cool. It was large inside and had a huge outdoor patio with a very large grassy area. All the other photographers showed up with their kids, which was really nice, because I got to finally take pictures of kids. They ran around outside and I got some shots, but only a handful came out good enough for me.

Baby L

Baby A

Miss T

Information overload.

2008-06-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

At the suggestion of a friend of mine, I visited an online tutorial site, lynda.com. All I can say is WOW! I just recently purchased Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop CS3 and just finished a 5 1/2 hour online video tutorial on Lightroom basics. I didn't watch it all in one day. This was over the span of a week, but it was absolutely what I was needing. I consider myself computer savvy, but I am completely new to Lightroom. Last week, Julia showed me a quick overview of Lightroom on her laptop for an hour or so. When I got home that evening, I felt that I had a basic understanding of what Lightroom was all about, but I needed more. I could have probably figured everything else out on my own after playing with it for some time, but the information that I learned from this online tutorial would have probably taken me months to learn on my own. I highly recommend this website if you haven't come across it already.

As for Lightroom, I'm totally happy with this application. I never realized what a powerful application it was and everything it is capable of doing. Wow! Just wow.

Little Miss H

2008-06-05T18:51:00.000-07:00

I got to hang out with my friend Julia today for a few hours after work. We spent a couple of hours going over Lightroom. Wow.. what an incredible program. I had installed it on my computer, but hadn't opened it yet because it looked pretty overwhelming. She showed me the basics of everything, and its amazing how powerful this program is. I can't wait to really dig into it, but its going to take many hours learning this program.

After we were done with that, we headed out to the backyard and took pictures of her adorable neice. I believe she is 5 years old, and is very active and NOT SHY AT ALL. Which is great for when you are trying to take pictures of a child. Its amazing how fast kids move around and how they do not like to stay still for even a few seconds. I got about 50 pictures of her before she was done. Out of the 50, I think I got 2 good pictures and this one is my favorite:

Spring ... how I miss thee ...

2008-06-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

One day in early spring, while I was out geocaching, I found myself in this very small wooded area in between huge residential areas. I just happened to have my camera with me and took a few shots. Spring isn't over yet, but it already feels like mid-summer.

Skeese Greets Triathlon

2008-05-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the Skeese Greets Triathlon that I had planned on participating in. However, being the slacker that I am, I wasn't prepared so I decided not to race and just be one of the team photographers for the day. I got about 250 photos, and a lot of them didn't come out very well because it was morning in full on sunlight. Here are a couple of my favorites that I'd like to share:

This is Shannon. An stunning 21-year old who finished 3rd in her age group. Today she did a triathlon with her mom and her grandmother. Grandma finished 1st in her age group!

This is my coach, holding up her finisher's medal:

Maybe I'll have more pictures later ...

Wet baby!

2008-05-12T16:55:00.000-07:00

Celebrated Mother's Day with the in-laws on Saturday instead of Sunday this year. It was a beautiful day outside and the kids had fun keeping cool in the sprinkler. I didn't get many pictures that day because the light inside just wasn't bright enough to catch a clear picture and the kids were running around like crazies outside playing in the water and I couldn't get close enough with my 50mm lens. I did get to capture one picture of my niece, Baby A.

She is such a good baby.

Downtown Austin

2008-05-12T16:41:00.000-07:00

During last week's photography class, we took a small field trip to the new park in downtown Austin. We were practicing our metering and exposures. Here are a couple of my favorite photos from that day. I took a whole bunch, but a lot of them were bad because we were practicing what to do correctly and what not to do.

Downtown Austin:

Park rules:

Photo Beginnings ...

2008-05-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

And so it begins ... my journey into photography.

Halfway through my 6 week Beginner Digital Photography course that I'm currently enrolled in at the Dougherty Arts Center, I've found that it was worth the investment. We've learned about aperatures, shutter speeds, ISO, metering, white balance and little bit on composition. I knew most of the info about aperatures and shutter speeds, but I was finally able to correlate how they work with ISO. White balance has always been a mystery to me, but now I feel like I have a decent understanding of what white balance is, even though I might not have a complete grasp of how to make it work within the camera.

Composition isn't really something that can be taught. I've been reading a lot of photography blogs and forums and checking out styles of other photographers. I think composition is going to be the hardest part for me. The creative part of my brain doesn't work as well as I'd like. In class last week, we touched a little bit on composition and the idea of 'leading lines'. Here is my attempt at leading lines: