Stop reading and shoot someone!

Last weekend I shot my Sister-in-law's engagement photos and felt really rusty. It took me forever to get my lighting right and even then I didn't love it. Thankfully I finally sorta got the lighting I was looking for and the pictures turned out great. (see the whole album @ facebook.com/jdjonesphotography) 

Sine then, I have been doing a lot of blog reading about photography and lighting. Article after article trying to increase my knowledge. One think I have read from a lot of pro photog's is to "read little shoot a lot." So last night I got off the computer and setup my light and thankfully Sherlock (our tabby diva of a cat... wait that's redundant... anyway) behaved and let me take some shots of her. The result was that I found one of the lighting setups I had been looking for last weekend and all it took was shooting with straight on hard light at an high angle!

So today's moral of the story is: reading to gain knowledge is great but you also have to apply that knowledge. 

JD

ps my wife ordered this for my daughter who will be here in less than 9 weeks! It's great!