Weekend Memoirs {in photo form}

You all know that I aspire to be a great photographer but have neither the money {for equipment} or the time {for instruction} so it's all a bit "hit or miss" for the time being...but as long as I am constantly improving, even in small ways, I'm happy with that for now & know that I will take Karen Russell's online photography course one of these years...

I love this shot of my pregnant cousin. She looks so relaxed & happy - which was her mood - so at least I managed to capture it...and love that I have caught the bokeh effect in the background. I'm obsessed with that & it's my number 1. criteria {even though there are actually other way more important factors!}

My biggest hurdle is overcoming my self-consciousness/embarressment weilding a DSLR with an SB600 flash on top. I really need to work on my approach to/with people as I want to be able to capture relationships on camera without my subjects feeling self-conscious & ill-at-ease. Another thing is that I get flustered by the speed of it all at functions so just have to settle on an auto setting in order not to delay my subjects. I find that taking at least 4 shots in quick succession usually guarantees success once cropped & edited.

A quick {and technically terrible} shot of the garden, just to show y'all the beautiful setting & the view from the covered veranda where the function took place. How pretty is that Victorian gazebo? Would look totally out of place in this province with all our tropical plants though unfortunately...I'm a great believer in going indigenous in the garden {just as I don't believe in buying imported fruit/veg out of season & rather eating seasonally}.

I love this photo of Danielle, a totally sweet, sweet girl & one of my cousin's oldest friends, as she keeps track of the gifts {who gave what} as they are opened...

I'm still busy editing all the photos & have e mailed them all on to family & back to said cousin & aunt & also compiled a dozen or so collages too...some of the "people" shots...

Shelley's collage...I desaturated all the photos quite a lot & made quite a few of them "focal colour with black & white" because I didn't have any control over the choice of background & the 2 pine doors behind her were hectically orange-toned!

Here I tried to capture her many expressions...but I also didn't have control of where I was seated so had to crop quite a lot & lose clarity.

Love how I cropped the photo of her tummy {above} & got various close-ups of those cute mini-Vans!

Got this one of Chelsea before the event.

So that's it for today. Got a dinner engagement tonight & I'm the photographer {again!} so need to go check that everything's charged, etc, & jump into the shower!

Made 3 cards {one from me, one from Chelsea & one from Cami, to accompany our gifts so will blog those tomorrow}. See you then...