Today, in all the rush and excitement of getting my brand new camera lens, I decided to go to my Grandma's front porch because it is lovely and full of interesting things to take pictures of. :D These are some of my favorites.

I loved this little metal shoe that was part of my Gram's windchime.

Aperture: f/1.6

Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec.

ISO: 400

Focal Length: 50mm

Part of a beautiful tree :]
Aperture: f/1.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec.
ISO: 400
Focal Length 50mm

Same tree as in the picture above. I love it!
Aperture: f/1.6
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec.
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 50mm

Two of Gram's statues. A reading boy and a cat that says "Welcome".
Aperture: f/1.4
Shutter Speed: 1/2000 sec.
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 50mm

I absolutely love my new lens. Finally I can take the dreamy photographs I love so much. :]

IT'S HERE!!!! :D:D

THE BOX!!!!!

:D

The UV Filter for protecting the lens.

THE BEAUTIFUL LENS!

Lens cap is more special than my other lens caps. It says ultrasonic on it!! :O


The very first picture I took with my new lens. Obviously it isn't great because I need more pratice, but you can definitely see the difference in how much more light it lets in! I am going to have a boatload of fun. :D:D Well now, I'm going to go have it instead of sitting here NOT taking pictures.

Bokeh Beauty

With this shot I simply put my camera on manual focus so it wouldn't freak out when I didn't have anything to focus on, and manually put everything out of focus.

Okay, so I officially love bokeh. It is truly beautiful, and sometimes the colorful little orbs can be mesmerizing. And even though I love this shot that I took on a busy street at night, I think it would be SO much better if there were something in focus as well. Why do I say this? Because bokeh is even more impressive when there is something in tack sharp focus to compare it to in the same picture. It makes peoples jaws drop while they ask "How did they DOOO that?" Or at least, that was my reaction before I started learning more about photography and got my DSLR. Honestly, I still find myself reacting that way though at a lot of pictures. There are so many ways to get so many different types of bokeh it is absolutely unreal. One of the biggest key factors is to get distance between your subject and the background that you want thrown out of focus, but to stand somewhat close to your subject. That will help a lot, especially if you don't have fancy schmancy equipment. When your camera focuses on your subject it will throw the background that is far away and distracting even just the slightest bit out of focus if you have a good camera, unless you are using a very narrow aperture (the higher numbers, like 16-22 or even higher in some cases). This was mostly just for me, and many of you won't get anything from this, but I love talking about bokeh. I apologize, but at the very least I hope you enjoyed looking at the picture! ;D

I'll probably put up some Photoshop tricks and things for your education purposes soon. Also, if I come up with any amazing recipes I will be sure to share!

Canon 50mm 1.4 EF Autofocus Daydream Comic

Ha ha ha... my apologies... I was bored, and this was on my mind. I promise I can actually draw more than just doodles and stick figures. ;D

Learning Curve

I guess the learning curve isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I still have some learning to do. For example, I am 99% sure that my posts should only come up as little descriptions and then people should be able to click "read more" or something like that. At least, that is what I thought would happen when I clicked the little box that said "short" instead of "full. For whatever reason, it's all just laid out there stretching my page out really long. It's frustrating, because I don't want people to have to scroll through all of my ramblings to get to a particular post if they want to. What if they want to read oldest to newest, and don't want TOO many spoilers? Well, I will figure it out, but for now, grin and bear it with me! ;]

Also, in the process of learning I accidentally followed myself and have no idea how to UN-follow myself. Help? ;P Yeah, we'll see how this whole thing goes. It's gonna be wild!

Burkie Say What?

Alright, so I am new to this blogging thing. Really, I'm a fresh one. I don't even journal. ;) I hope you will bear with me as I get used to this. I figured if I spend half as much time blogging, filling up a webpage with my rambling thoughts, as I spend mindlessly reading and updating statuses on Facebook I could be pretty successful at this.

Well, maybe. Perhaps it would go over better if I wrote about things people were interested in reading, but I just don't know if I can do that. One: I am not really all that interesting. Two: Interesting things don't usually happen to me. I'll try though, to at least be expressive, jubilant, flamboyant, amusing... or just as easily frustrated.

You know what I really like right now? Photography. Yup! That's right, I like walking around with a camera and capturing embarassing moments for a lifetime (no really, that is one of the best parts!). When I can't make somebody look absolutely ridiculous, I strive for excellence in my photos. One of my favorite things is to make somebody who is doing something totally normal or totally ridiculous look amazing! Posing people to get the perfect picture is for sissies. I let the perfect picture come to me... :D Heh heh... okay, SOMETIMES I like to pose people, but honestly I am not experienced with it very much yet. I will get better. I hope.

I ordered a new lens... and I am basically salivating just thinking about getting it. It should be here Monday if everything goes well. -crosses fingers hopefully- I have been so inspired by Ree Drummond's blog website (www.thepioneerwoman.com) that not only have I decided to start my own blog, I also went out and purchased a 50mm EF 1.4 Autofocus lens. I'm going to have so much fun once I get this. It will be my third lens since buying my Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi. I went kind of nutty and bought two lenses at the same time I got the camera body, but in all fairness one was the kit lens and in my mind it totally didn't count because it came with the camera. Plus, the other lens was discounted if I bought it right then. WINNER!

Maybe along the way in my photography journey I could teach you a few things I learn! That would be so super fun! Okay, all of that aside...

Yesterday it was all sprinkly rainy-like, and I was definitely loving it. I sat on my front porch with my camera, waiting for the water to stop slowly falling from the sky long enough for me to hunt for some water droplet pictures.

Now, I didn't want to venture far from home because it was sprinkling off and on all day in preperation for today's storm, but I did find some droplets that made some pictures I was (am) VERY proud of. It's actually a little ridiculous how proud I was (am) of these pictures. I have tons more, but I decided not to overdo it for my very first blog. I don't even know how much bandwidth I have for this thing. I should probably figure that out! Ha ha ha...