Picture Taking 101: Next Attempt

I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, but the pictures seem to be getting better. lol Here's a close up of a rose rock. Are ya'll familiar with these? Growing up in Oklahoma, we'd find them everywhere. Nowadays they sell them in stores. This one looks like a rose from certain angles, but I've seen some that look like an actual rose dipped in red/brown paint. Anyway, moving on...I was able to get a close up shot of these glass items on one of the book shelves. That's a glass doorknob there in the middle. I have no idea why it's lying there on it's "head" like that...
Here's another one of our "Believe" signs. Annie's a big fan of the "believe" concept!! I can never look at that word without thinking of her and Izzy.
Here's a shot of my mister (and I'm not talkin' about Randey). I love this thing. Well, I love Randey, too, but this is about the mist making mister, not Big Daddy. *smile* I know these mist makers are "so last year", but I still enjoy mine...the way the mist rolls over the side is just cool.
Here's my Oklahoma paver. This isn't one of my better pictures, I just wanted to show off my paver. lol
Here's a picture of our confetti lantana. I love lantana. Randey? Not so much. I love the way it spills out of the flowerbeds onto the walkway or the grass. Randey thinks I should allow him to trim it up even with the edge of the bed. Goob.

Here's my Esperanza. I absolutely LOVE this plant. It's a perennial and every year, I look forward to seeing it bloom like this. It will bloom even more profusely as the year progresses and will continue to bloom until the weather cools down and stays cooled down. Don't you love these flowers? They're so bright and happy!
These next two are Randey's favorites of today's batch of pictures. I'm pretty proud of them myself. (Okay, so my standards are fairly low at this point, bear with me!)
The purple blooms are on our Rose of Sharon tree (also known as an Althea tree).
I was trying to get fancy with this next shot. It might have worked if I'd gotten lower with my perspective. I wanted the foreground lily to be out of focus with the back bloom being sharply in focus. I think if I had been at a lower angle, it might have turned out better.
So what do you think? Am I improving? Or is this just wishful thinking? lol

This is embarrassing...

I took my big honkin' camera off the dining room table (where I thought it looked quite nice, thank you) and attempted to take pictures around our house. I was "practicing" you see. Because practice makes perfect, right? I took pictures of flowers and trees, as well as random things inside the house. Afterwards, I raced upstairs, downloaded the chip and had a moment of utter confusion. 110 pictures?? I didn't take 110 pictures. Maybe 25 or 30, but 110? No way. Well...way. If you count the ones I took at Christmas when I was "practicing" back then, too. I just forgot to delete those at the time. So here it is, almost the end of May, and here's what was in my camera:

Hard to enjoy the magic that's the Christmas season when the temperatures are over 90, you know what I mean? And of the 25 or 30 pictures I took yesterday, here's 3 that came out almost alright. Yes. Three. That means my "success rate" is at what? 10 percent? Geez.


I just knew that I was going to suddenly be able to take magnificent pictures when I picked up that camera yesterday. But alas, looks like there's no way out of it...I gotta hit the books after all. This "practice" session wasn't a total waste, though. I have mastered the "delete" function. (Baby steps, Kari...baby steps.)

P.S. Today is the boys' last day of school! Yippee! Right? This is a "yippee" moment, isn't it? Yes, it is. I'm sure of it. We're going to have a great summer. And I mean it.

Way Over My Head

Last summer, I fussed and fussed about wanting a nicer camera. I wanted to be able to take pictures like a pro. My little point and shoot camera just wasn't up to the task. Actually, in retrospect, I think the operator of my little point and shoot camera wasn't up to the task but hindsight ain't helping me now. 'Cause now, thanks to my big mouth, I have a much bigger problem. Almost a year ago - yes! One. Whole. Year. Ago. - Randey bought me this: Isn't it something? A Nikon D80 - a truly magnificent piece of machinery. And that's not all. He also bought me this:
Lenses and gadgets galore. Woo-hoo! Unfortunately, Randey forgot that he's married to a technologically challenged individual who can't even program a microwave or TiVo with any degree of accuracy. I've had this entire set up all this time and I still don't know how to use this darn camera. I was overjoyed when I saw that our local community education office was offering a 6 week digital photography class for beginners. And then I found out that the class starts the week we leave for vacation. Ugh! However, my wonderful neighbor, Brian, loaned me a few books on photography so all is not lost. Sure, he loaned them to me months ago, but my procastination has prevented me from taking advantage of them until now (so it's not my fault, see?). But now the time has come. Our vacation is fast approaching so I can't put this off any longer...I'm going to have to break down and crack open those books. And hope Kaleb's around to interpret the tech-y stuff for me. (You don't suppose it's possible to actually electrocute yourself with a honkin' camera like this, do 'ya?)