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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Alicia Bruce: lifestyle photographer?

Over the past ten years I have gone from first-time digital camera owner (2.1 megapixels!  Silent video recordings!) to full-fledged photographer.  Though sometimes I still hesitate calling myself a photographer and say "I enjoy photography" instead.  Nomenclature aside, for the past decade I have learned the ins and outs of the five digital cameras I've owned, outgrowing one before upgrading to the next.  After owning my 7D for over a year and a half, I'm still learning new things about it.

And photography in general.

By my very nature, I am a learner.  I love to educate myself and learn new things.  I love to try new things. I like to experiment with my camera and try techniques I didn't know existed until I read about them on a blog.  Through all of this educating and experimenting, I am working on finding my own style of photography.  What is it that I want to shoot?  I take pictures of everything, of course, but what is it that really gets my heart going?

Landscapes?

Macro?

Long exposures?

All of the above? Pretty much.

 But, you know, I'm not too experienced at shooting portraits of people. It takes more than just a super good camera to capture something like that.  You've got to know the camera and how it works to be sure you'll get the shot when you press the shutter.  You've got to have an eye for composition.  And you've got to have a heart that can capture emotion.

Maybe I have an inkling of these things hiding down inside of me.  I'll never know if I don't try, right?

So off I went in search of people to photograph; four families of my husband's coworkers.  They all agreed to be my subjects in return for some free family photographs.  I had quite a variety of families to work with:

Large.

Small.


In between.


Older kids.


Younger kids.


And a baby.

I've certainly got a lot to work toward, but I think I'm off to a decent start.  I need to become more comfortable with directing people, for one.  I also need to learn how to pose subjects and how to encourage natural smiles.  But that will all come with time.

As I finish editing the family portraits, I'll be sure to post some of them here.

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