Photography Class #1

I am taking an on-line photography class from Big Picture Classes called Mastering Manual Mode. I'm doing this as part of my New Year's Resolutions to work on my photography. I think I'm a pretty good photographer when it comes to composition and the creative aspect of photography. But in spite of years of taking photos with a DSLR camera, I just can't seem to master the manual setting. The technical side of photography just seems so incomprehensible to me! So I'm hoping this class will help.

Our pre-class assignment was to take 10 photos of a variety of things so that we could then compare them to photos we take at the end of the class. So here are my 10 photos. These are all SOOC:

someone I love

two people I love (a dog counts, right?)

my favorite food (not at all my favorite, just made a great picture!)

a plant in my yard (not much color this time of year)

a landscape photo

a person in action

a candid photo

a self-portrait

a favorite object in my home

a group portrait

Our first assignment was to take five photos of the same person, with the camera set to 400 ISO in Program mode, in a variety of different lighting's, and note how the camera changed the aperture and shutter speed to compensate. Apparently I don't follow directions well as I only took four photos! Here are my photo's, along with their camera settings:

outdoors in direct sunlight (ISO 400, aperture 7.1, shutter speed 1/1,250)

indoors, by a window (ISO 400, aperture 1.4, shutter speed 1/40)

outdoors in shade (ISO 400, aperture 4.0, shutter speed 1/400)

On the front porch, beneath an overhang (ISO 400, aperture 1.6, shutter speed 1/60)

Hopefully I'll understand what this all means very soon!