I’ve fallen deeply in love with my 50mm f1.4 again… not only did I do the entire boudoir workshop with it last week, and the boudoir shoot on Sunday (seriously the entire shoot with one lens)… but aren’t these photos just dreamy?

* My Every Day project is my 2012 year-long project reflecting my life and things around me

So this week is Week 2 of the Brooke Snow Advanced Pro photography course that I’m busy doing, and this week’s assignment was about posing.

Because my family shoot that I had booked for Sunday afternoon was cancelled, I asked my sister to meet me in the veld (same location as last week) for a quick shoot after work today.  I’m thrilled with the results.

For my preparation, I compiled a rough pose list as per the instructions… rough because I have a list of inspirational images anyway on Pinterest, so I just looked for a few more to supplement it.  That wasn’t new to me, I tend to prepare like that with all my shoots, especially when I’m shooting in an environment that I’m unfamiliar with.  No, I don’t look at images from that particular location, but I have a rough idea from my pose list what I’m going to be aiming for.

What also wasn’t new to me, was “working the pose”.  I could be better at it though, so this weekend I really worked on that… and it showed in the results of the boudoir shoot I did on Sunday (that you can’t see yet), and with today’s shoot.  It made such a difference.

One thing that I LOVED in this week’s tutorials were the posing guides, and Brookes “rules” for posing.  I know them instinctively, and I’ve read them… but the videos just hit home, and there were some small adjustments that I made this weekend as a result that’s made a huge difference.  I like the images more… and because of that, I really really struggled to only choose 3 for today’s assignment.

So, for today’s assignment results, I kept Elaine in the same spot.  She really didn’t move much at all, I just changed where she looked and what she did with her arms and legs.  One thing that did change during the shoot was the sun… I was ecstatic when the clouds moved while I was busy and I got the beautiful golden summer light (it was about 5:30pm)

The rest of my favourites from the session can be found in an album on Facebook

If you follow my blog, you’d know that my aim this year is to stretch myself with my photography.  So, with that in mind, I’ve signed up for an online advanced Lifestyle photography class for the next month.  It’s being run by Brooke Snow in the US, and a week into the course I’m loving the content.  Not only is her content about the topic for the week, but she’s added a whole host of things to help run a photography business.  It’s always fantastic to learn from other successful photographers.

Anyhoo, the assignments have to be posted on our blogs, and this post is my first submission .  The aim of this week was to do a photoshoot in a location that you’d never used before, and to create a shot list and really work the location.

Because I didn’t have a portrait shoot booked for the weekend, I used my boys as this week’s subjects (Nicole, your shoot on Sunday afternoon will be including my topic for the next week’s assignment ).

As for the location, I chose a narrow strip of veld (greenbelt) that’s a few blocks away from our house.  We walk the dogs along the pathways, and I’ve been dying to have a photoshoot there in the late afternoon with the sun in the long grasses.  Thankfully the boys were keen (I’ve given them a bit of a posing break in the last few weeks), and we stopped there on the way home this evening.

We’ve had a LOT of rain lately, and I didn’t realise how marshy the land was.  The municipality had cut the grass along the river so that residents can walk their dogs easily, but thankfully they haven’t cut the rest of the long grass yet.  My plan was to get the kids into the long grass and take photos of them with the sun glinting off the tips of the grasses.  That didn’t work all that well because it was quite cloudy.  And I was going to get them to lie in the grass… which they refused to do because the ground was actually very wet.  So instead I had to make other plans. With the grass under the trees being so short for a change, I discovered how gorgeous the line of willow trees was, and used that.  Then Connor got bored and sat on a log… and I snapped away.  Then they found some dandelions and those are always fun

I’m only allowed to choose 3 images though… so here are my favourites…

* My Every Day project is my 2012 year-long project reflecting my life and things around me

I know it’s unusual for me to post personal photos on a weekend, but I’m so proud of Connor right now  (I did do a shoot this morning but not going to post the images online)

Connor got in the pool this afternoon, and after a bit I convinced him to take his armbands off to practise his swimming again.  He’s getting more and more confident without the armbands, and today I think we made a break through

He swam underwater for the first time… and then he floated on his back!! Without armbands I’m THRILLED!

Taken with the Sony A77 and the 16-50mm f2.8 lens that I’m reviewing for Girl Guides.

* My Every Day project is my 2012 year-long project reflecting my life and things around me

The boys decided that my TV program that they were being “forced” to watch was far too boring for them, so they got the checkers board out

I used the opportunity to test the Sony A77 (I’m reviewing it for Girl Guides) in low light… I think I pushed it too far for the camera, ISO 2000 is far too grainy.

* My Every Day project is my 2012 year-long project reflecting my life and things around me