Before today’s photo exercise in setting, I’d like to tell you that the stories Brian and I share about our past, raising the kids, homeschooling, travel, building a brand–it all comes from a place that I call “Impossible Hope”. We have both faced so many impossible mountains to climb, and yet here we are in this blessed place, and believe me we’re still climbing–but what a honor to climb alongside all of you!

I know that understanding your camera can feel like an impossible task sometimes. I thought it would be fun to give you a photo exercise in setting that helps make that BIG, BLACK THING feel more enticing…more irresistible!

This photo exercise is all about Setting. It was inspired by one of Blaze’s recent blanket forts. If you remember from our DVD, Refuse to Say Cheese, I love the story telling element of Setting. We are sometimes so caught up in catching the action of the story or the character that we forget to capture WHERE the story took place. I’m sure all kids have a favorite setting if not multiple settings. Our kids set up their own offices, storefronts in the living room and especially forts made of sheets and blankets.

Blaze was so precious in this moment, I had to capture it. Time seems to standstill when I look at this image of him.

For all my Photo Recipe lovers, here we go!

I shot this image with the Sony A900 camera body, and the 24-70mm lens–the lens that I affectionately call my “Work Horse” b/c of how versatile it is. If you want to know more about what is in my camera bag, you can read What’s in a Camera Bag For Beginners to see what type of gear you want and why.

The aperture/fstop was 2.8. The 24-70mm lens can’t go lower than a 2.8, but that is plenty low to get the blurry background and blasted out window light.

So how did I blast out the window light? Did I run over to the window with a light meter and measure the light? Heck no!! I don’t own one of those and don’t want to. It would only be another thing to take through security at the airport. 🙂

I love to keep things simple. And this “blasting out the window light” is easy my friends. It requires going into Manual, but you can do it.

Put your camera in Manual, adjust your fstop/aperture to it’s lowest setting and then just take the shot. Who cares where the Shutter Speed is at, just take the shot and see what you get.

My Shutter Speed for this photo exercise in setting was an 80th of a second for the above image. If my image had been to dark, then I would need to SLOW my Shutter Speed down so more light could come in. If my image had been to bright, then I would have needed to SPEED my Shutter Speed up to let less light in. I know Manuel freaks some of you out, but take a deep breath and take a shot of your kids in their favorite setting, and then adjust your Shutter Speed until the light is just right.

Remember, unless you have the Super Steady Shot feature in the Sony camera body or an image stabilizer lens, you won’t be able to go slower than a 60th of a second without having motion blur from your hands. How do you fix that? Bump up your ISO up to get more light.

To get the window light to blast out like it did behind Blaze, you just need to slow your shutter speed down more and more until the blasted window light is right where you want it. Play with the light. Play with your Shutter Speed. Experiment. Give yourself freedom to take images that are to dark or to bright. It’s the only way to find what you want.  For some feedback on on your shots from this photo exercise in setting, post your photos on my Facebook page.

To learn more about setting your camera’s Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO, check out our DVD, Beyond the Green Box! And to learn more about the Story Telling elements of photography, like Setting, check out our DVD, Refuse to Say Cheese! Both DVDs won Gold Awards recently from a national parenting contest! We know you’ll love them too! Or, if your feeling like you REALLY want to treat yourself, you can grab one of our last open seats in an upcoming CONFIDENCE workshop!