A Second Birthday

It’s hard to believe my youngest son turned two last week! Every day he’s turning more and more into a little boy. (He’s now 2 feet, 11 inches!) He copies his older brother without relent, but he’s definitely his own person.

I’ve written about my rocky start with Boa before which didn’t allow me the freedom to take any pictures of him aside from my camera phone. These and pictures like them are the only photographic memories I have of my newborn!

They’re not exactly pictures I want to hang on my wall, but they’re much better than no pictures at all. Taking any photo is leaps and bounds better than taking none.

By the end of 2009 I had a working lens for my DSLR again and started studying photography by taking on a photo-a-day project. The pictures I took of Boa became a little better, but I still had no clue about photo editing, white balance or ISO. As a result, the photos I have from this time period are noisy and off-color.

As time progressed, so did my picture taking abilities and I’ve been able to get many shots of my littlest boy that I just love.

Birthday Party!

We had a small birthday party for Boa on Friday. It was dark inside and I was using my 18-105mm lens which was probably a mistake. I needed to use ISO 1600, the highest my ancient camera will go. I hate working with ISO 1600 and usually convert anything I take in it to black and white. Instead of doing that this time, I tried just reducing the noise and correcting the color the best I could in editing.

I’ve come a long way photographically in the past two years, but I haven’t grown nearly as much as my sweet little dumpling. It’s hard to believe he was ever under nine pounds, silent and still for most of the day!

How much have you grown?

How has YOUR skill as a photographer grown in the past two years? What mistakes have you learned from?

Please feel free to answer below, on Twitter (@PhotoLynda) or Facebook!

It’s also never too late to dig in and start learning!