On aperture and shutter speed (and a pre-nup shoot)

I was asked by a friend to do a pre-nuptial shoot for her college friend. I excitedly said yes right away. Moments later when it sunk in, I panicked! hehehe.

Last year, when I did my brother's pre-nup shoot, I wasn't that high on the outcome (some pictures came out dark!!!), and I need to do a lot of post processing (in Picasa, I am yet to try my hand on photoshop) to brighten up my day, uhm, the pictures. Although they came out fine, I would have preferred less post processing (read: i am lazy).

As the day draws nearer, that feeling of not being able to deliver pressured me to no end, and that pressure is slowly overtaking the excitement i initially had.

Until I realized my mistakes (or stupidity if you'll allow me hehe)

The problem with "dark" pictures is in the setting!!! I've been on manual focus since day 1 with Zeus but instead of figuring out my problem, I always let frustrations reigned over me when faced with low light scenario, I just patched it by going into Aperture mode or by using the pop-up flash, which in both cases, add more frustrations whenever i see blurs and/or a washed out picture. Maybe I am just too excited to take pictures that I let some important technicalities of photography to the side. Or maybe I am just plain lazy.

Punish me for not putting into heart that a combination of large aperture and a slow shutter speed lets more light in, and if the scene is too bright, doing the opposite (or with the help of a filter) will do the trick. There. Not rocket science, just a simple turn on the dial saved my bleeding brain! Poor me for being one s*@#$%@#@$!

I admit that yours truly is not technically proficient, that whenever I read some photography stuffs, the mere mention of exposure value intimidates me. I should have faced the technical aspect early on. I should shoot more to know my camera more. And I should listen to photographers' experiences to learn more and be better on the craft.

The road is still long for me to be even called a mediocre shooter, more so as a mediocre photographer, but that road can be traversed, and while on that road, I need to absorb all lessons and take each mistake as an opportunity to learn. I expect them to be a lot, just like the buttons on the camera and the menu on the lcd screen. :)

Back on the pre nup shoot, for now, let me just share you this.


more to come, happy weekend... :)