Pumpkin Patch!

We decided to take Ben to his very first pumpkin patch yesterday! He had an awesome time playing with the hay and touching all the pumpkins! My sister and niece decided to come along too :) I admit, I wanted to go to the pumpkin patch more than ANYONE, just for the photo ops! We got there kind of late and since it's "fall" (I'm in Los Angeles, so "fall" just means cloudy...boo for me) it was getting dark pretty fast. Not to mention that it suddenly became overcast! Basically, I was a picture takin' fool RIGHT when we got there. Ordering the hubby to put Ben here and there, fix his jacket!, Ben! Look at Mama! I was sweating bullets, people!

Earlier in the day I made a nice list on my iPhone of the poses and moments that I wanted to capture. Yea, right! My plan of attack was to get some structured poses first and then get more lifestyle shots of when we all actually picked out pumpkins and what-not. I didn't any lifestyle shots at all, and I am so bummed about it! Those are the type of shots I actually prefer, but I wanted to get some portrait-type shots to mix it up. By the time I was finished with the poses, literally 10 minutes because of the light, it had gotten too dark to even attempt any with my D90. The D90 is horrible with noise!

I'm going to FORCE myself to submit something over on CM for critique tomorrow. I'm really trying to hone my black & white editing skills, so I might submit the few that I have here to see if I'm headed in the right direction. I WILL DO IT!! :-\

Well, here's what I got! My husband Steve is also a newbie photographer, he was first! haha! So I posted some of his photos too :)

1/250, f/2.8, ISO 200 (No, he's not growling...this is his "Cheesin'" face!! He's such a happy baby. He doesn't do nice smiles so much anymore...he'll go from a straight serious face right to this one! I love this so much, it's so him!!) Didn't seem to nail focus on this one! :(


1/250, f/2.8, ISO 200


1/250, f/2.2, ISO 200


1/250, f/2.2 ISO 250


1/200 f/3.5, ISO 800 (The learning curve to get multiple people in focus is hard! I have to practice on this more!)


1/180, f2.4, ISO 800 (Steve's pic)


1/180, f2.8, ISO 800 (Steve's pic)


1/180, f/2.8, ISO 800 (Steve's pic)


1/200, f1.4, ISO 800 (My sister and niece!)


1/250, f/2.2, ISO 250


1/200, f/1.4, ISO 800 (Steve's pic...therefore can't get blamed for the soft photo! haha!)


1/200, f/2.5, ISO 250 (Beautiful niece!)


1/250, f/2.5, ISO 250


1/250, f/2.2 ISO 250 (It looks like my focus fell on the pumpkins?...yikes!)

Wow my settings are all over the place! The light was getting dim fast, so I was frantic! All of the photos with an ISO of 250 were taken earlier in the evening and then I had to quickly jump to 800! My Nikon is NOT a fan of the high ISO. I'm also trying to close my aperture and get away from always wanting to shoot in 1.4 with this lens. But alas, I'm not happy with the focus on a lot of these but it's what I ended up with.

Overall, what matters the most is that I captured Ben's first trip to the pumpkin patch! I think he had a great time, but I also saw him freak out at a stuffed gorilla! He's never done that before...so I witnessed my baby get scared for the first time too :(

I'm finding that going back to look my settings to post them on here is another way to see what I could have done differently. I like!