A learning adventure

I used to get a lot of pictures like this one. I used my flash a lot. See McKay's eyes? A few pictures with the half closed eyes wouldn't be a big deal, but I had so many pictures of him squinting it is a little sad. His eyes are so incredibly sensitive to light, that as soon as the flash fired, bam...eyes were closing. I do have some with his eyes opened, but usually he is looking off into the distance or looking down. Michael's eyes are pretty sensitive too, but he would try and keep them open, but he would always say, "That hurts, don't do that."

Besides, their faces lost all the interesting shadows, another reason that flash was not working for us.

After despairing over the state of McKay's pictorial memories, I started looking into how to take natural light pictures. Yeah, I totally admit I am an obsessive personality ;) I started looking into ISO and then into aperture (a slower shutter obviously would NEVER work for photographing McKay! Ha!) I even eventually got an SLR mainly to get a portrait lens that could open to f/1.8 for more versatility for indoor photography in low light. Yeah, remember that obsessive comment? Apply it here too. It is all still a work in progress, but I am so happy to have some pictures that show McKay in his natural element, rather than with his face all distorted from flinching away from the light.

It has opened up a really interesting area to study. Photography is full of things to learn. Darwin can even get into studying it. Lots of things he can use his math and science brain on. It is enjoyable to have something we can both learn about together. (Darwin is less about taking the actual pictures, but understanding WHY it works like it does.) I am just about trying to make sure the pictures that record our family memories accurately reflect what happened and look decent.

Hey, if anyone reading this (ya know, all my 3 readers...) has any tips for low-light photography that work for them, let me know! I am finding I would rather take a slightly underexposed non-flash picture and alter the levels in photoshop than taking a flash picture anymore. Eventually, I might get an accessory flash and try bouncing flash off of the walls or ceiling and see how McKay does with that. I mean, Christmas morning is generally too dark to do without flash. So, I don't think I can go through life without flash entirely. But at this point, I am probably down to using it maybe 4% of the time. I think McKay likes getting his picture taken better.