March--Family Photos, etc.

A lot has been happening this past month, both for my photography and my life in general.

Probably the biggest thing right now is, I just got my full driver's licence!  It's been a very long process, but now I have it and will be driving around as soon as I get a working car.  I was also supposed to get my motorcycle endorsement the same day, but we had the wrong paperwork, so it will have to wait a few days until I get the paperwork to them.  Once that happens, I'll be able to legally ride my own motorcycle on the streets!  (of course, I'll need to get the bike licensed and stuff...)

I've also been busy working on some projects for Thunder Road Ministries.  This year, when we are at Sturgis, South Dakota during Bike Week, we will set up Kidz Zone again.  But this year the theme is a spin off of Pirates of the Caribbean--instead, we'll be going as the Pirates of the Galilean!  Dad asked me to create a banner for it.  He gave me his idea, then asked me to put it down on a graphic.  A few hours later I had photoshopped the above photo together, and asked Dad what he thought of it.  We went through a few rounds of refinement, but after it was all done, Dad was very pleased with it.

Now that my brother has a baby, his wife is taking a lot of photos of her.  However, they wanted me to take some official photos before the baby got too big, so we went out one day and took the photos.  The results are in the slideshow below.  It was pretty difficult to work in the bright, unfiltered sunlight, but I made do with what I could.  I think it came out pretty well.

I recently went through a lesson in flash photography in my photography school, and it really made me want to dig out my old flash unit (it was actually Dad's before he gave it to me) and try my hand with the flash.  But, after taking both the camera and the flash to Best Buy to see if they knew what was going on, I found out that there was an issue:  The camera is too new for the flash.  Before, when I was using a Canon Rebel T1i, it was compatible.  But when I upgraded to the T2i, they cancelled support for a lot of the older flash units, mine included.  So now I'm looking into buying a new flash unit.  I don't want to lay down a whole lot of cash for one, but it is an important tool, especially in things like portrait photography.

Here's the slideshow...if you like what you see, please consider me the next time you need portraits taken, because I'd love to try to work something out!