Learning photography

I mentioned in an earlier post that I am taking up photography.  This comes as a big surprise to me.  My hubby is a fantastic photographer.  I have always been so very happy with my little TOTALLY AUTOMATIC camera.  But, I am practical for the most part, and I can see that it would fill a need in our photography business to have a second photographer.  So, here I go.  

Hubby got me a camera and tried to show me a few things.  I said "tried".  It's like he was speaking a completely different language.  Argh.  My son, who is also a fantastic photographer, gave me some very helpful advice.  He explained that "Dad" just knows too much about photography.  Hubby is old enough to have learned photography in the days of film and darkrooms.  My son suggested that I just set it to auto and take a bunch of pictures.  

The truth is that the camera intimidates me.  I think that just by holding it, I will be expected to know what I am doing.  It's huge.  And, it has so many buttons and dials.  Just too much.  

I decided that a beginner's class is what I needed.  I found one through the camera store and signed up.  I was really looking forward to it.  

The day before the class, hubby and I went up the mountains and I took these pictures.  I used auto settings except for a few times when hubby changed them.  I had no idea what he changed.  I would learn all of that the next day.  Right?

It was a beautiful day up country and I had a lot of fun taking pictures.

I'm always in hubby's pictures.  Now, he can be in some!

I love this old tree.  It's huge!  

The aspens turn yellow and orange.  We are hoping to go one more time before it's over.

It was so pretty.  Perfect weather.

This trip was not planned.  We were dropping of a rocker at my daughter's house and hubby just wanted to so up the road "a ways" and see if the tree's had changed.  We just kept going farther and farther.

And, the next thing we knew....we were in Lake Tahoe!  Hubby snapped this with my iphone.  He gets as flustered with my Iphone as I do with the camera.

We got there just in time to watch a beautiful sunset.

The next day, when I got to the class, I was the last to show up and the only seat available was right in the center front (intimidating!).  There were about twelve people.  About half had Cannon (like mine) and the other half, Nikon.  We spent the next three hours learning all the technical jargon that is photography.  In the very beginning the teacher told us that his goal was to get us all off the auto settings. Oh darn. 

The teachers were extremely patient and helpful.  They had a very simple booklet to follow and I took diligent notes.  

When I left, instead of feeling confident and knowledgeable, I felt overwhelmed and confused.  How was I going to remember all that stuff?  

Hubby asked me about the class.  I told him the truth.  I wasn't sure if I learned anything or not. (mostly NOT)  The next day, I asked him a question about my camera settings.  He started talking and turning dials as usual.  Only, this time, I knew what he was saying.  He has been saying these things all along.  F stop, shutter speed and so on.  And, now I knew what those words meant!  Hallelujah!  I guess I did learn something after all.