Don't be surprised if I snap a few of you soon...

Unedited

And so the adventure begins.
Developing style.
Stalking you with my camera…and so on.

A little blah blah: 

I recently purchased a Nikon 5100 DSLR that I am building a steady relationship with. Within the first shot I knew that I would be investing a large portion of my time researching, tweaking, Google searching, aperture and shutter speed experimenting - all of the camera jargon verbs you can conjure up.

After taking a couple thousand photos; playing with great and shallow depth of field, portraits, panning, blur and stop motion... I feel comfortable switching manual settings up and adjusting ISO and shutter speed in front of people without recreating a three stooges scenario with me and the camera.

Now, I have redirected my focus on Adobe Lightroom, Lr, and finding a look that I feel represents my style and signatures look. In saying that, I realize it will change as my knowledge grows and I look forward to looking back at these and giving myself the "amateur head shake".

The upper right is the original photo of Joel & Ez that I took at the Kanapaha Memorial Park trail- this was not the 'best one' or really any special moment- I just snagged it from a folder to concentrate on editing preferences. I have been focusing on natural light, no flash photography, and an out of focus background, aka shallow depth of field. I really love the look of it as it provides a soft intimate feel much like we see physically when our eyes dial into a subject we want to focus on that is not right next to us. 

After, Lr

After I cleaned up the image in Lr, with the preferences that my Photography Instructor suggested, this was the final product. Aesthetically, I feel it has a crisp look and the contrasts and darker shadows are more prevalent. I am looking for a bit more grain and a softer feel that the above picture has but haven't yet found a combination of edits that accomplish the look I seek in my head. I wish the grass wasn't over his face but I am happy with the composition and don't necessarily mind that Joel is cut off. The cat tails were so enchanting I felt the need to use them as a third party in the shot.