The Problem

The little guy is asleep for the night and I am stoked. Let's do this!

I have taken some pictures I am proud of in the last few years, such as the one above. I like to think that many of them are on par with a lot of work I see that is regarded as professional. I have a general sense of composition, and I am getting better at catching the "moment" in my camera as time races by. But I know how few pictures I go for actually turn out and, thanks the PhotoVision dvd magazine we subscribe to, I get to watch pros (some of the best in the world) shooting live with real clients in real photo shoots, and I can see the painfully large gap between their consistency and mine. And now we come to:

The Problem

I know what I need to work on to get where I want to go with the whole picture business. My trouble is that I have a wife (no Alicia, you are not my trouble), three kids with baby number four coming soon, a construction business, lots of people in my life who I interact with, a life, etc. I am a church treasurer in my spare time and I do all kinds of random other stuff that may or may not fit into the etc. category. I run the business side of Alicia Brown Photography, and second shoot most of the weddings my wife covers. I am trying to be caring and intentional in my relationships with people, especially with my children (and that category seems to keep growing mysteriously). You could say the time I have to spend on honing my sweet photo skills is a bit limited.

I have been writing now for twenty minutes and I need to stop soon. I am going to have to break the unveiling of my plan and any attached philosophical ramblings up into a couple of installments. So....

Here is the essence of my goal: I want to always be able to find the best light for my subject I can get, have my iso speed, exposure and lighting ready, and be prepared to capture that one instant when something special happens that might never happen again. It isn't rocket science, but it takes a great deal of experience that I do not yet have and want to get within a limited amount of time. I want to be a photo ninja. If Chuck Norris should ever direct one of his infamous lightening roundhouse kicks toward my head, I want to be metered and prepared to focus and get off a frame or two of his foot before I either duck or get wholloped into next week.

I plan to keep my Canon 30d with me most of the time starting tomorrow. And I hope to do some expounding on the details of my plan very soon.

Stay tuned.