I recently purchased the Tamron 35-150 f2-2.8 lens, and what better subjects to test it out on than the kiddos! The baby is easily distracted with the ball, and the older man is pretty comfortable once on the couch.

I’ve also been testing out HDR editing in Lightroom. I love how you can have such dramatic contrast.

I love following and trying to live up to the standards of Jared Polin aka FroKnowsPhoto. I’ve been following his biggest recommendation since day 1 - shooting raw. I’ve seen why: as the capabilities of editing software enhances, you can go back to the original file and take advantage of the newest capabilities and generate an even better output that was shot years earlier.

His other recommendation has frankly scared me for years: shooting in M, or manual mode. I’ve always found it safer to shoot in A, or aperture priority, opening up the aperture as wide as possible and letting the camera figure out the rest. Most of the time, I got the picture I wanted; some times, however, pictures were too light or too dark (light metering), too blurry (shutter speed), or too grainy (ISO).

I understand the basics of the exposure triangle. I understand the impacts of changing aperture, changing shutter speed, and changing ISO. I understand why you want to find that “sweet spot” for the perfect photo. I struggled with determining where to start. Let’s say I wanted to do a Manual version of Aperture Priority - in other words, open the aperture as wide as possible. How do I know where to start with either ISO or shutter speed to find the right spot in the exposure triangle to hit the right mark on the light meter?

Since questions and struggles like that make me retreat and not try something new, especially when out on a shoot, I never pushed hard to make the move, especially when I almost always got what I set out to get. However, I finally decided, almost always wasn’t good enough.

Watching a bunch of Jared’s videos, and then reading several other blogs I follow, I found a common theme: shoot with the lowest ISO you can. OK, that made sense. So if you have great lighting 100-200 ISO, moderate lighting 400-800, pushing higher if you’re indoors or outdoors with poor light. I started fooling with that, however simply choosing the ISO and then adjusting the shutter speed wasn’t cutting it.

Which led me to this revelation: Shoot with the lowest ISO your specific shoot can tolerate. Let’s talk about this for a second. If you’re going to be shooting portraits, headshots, or scenery where there’s little motion, that means you can tolerate a slower shutter speed. That means, more light onto the sensor, so you can tolerate a lower ISO. On the flip side, if you’re shooting sports, action shots, animals, or candids, you’ll need a faster shutter speed. That means, less light onto the sensor, so you need a higher ISO.

Of course, the above is ridiculously obvious in hind sight, and also second nature to anyone who’s been shooting manual for a long time. However, it’s a leap for someone who’s used to the camera doing those steps.

Once I got comfortable with that, I also got nervous - what happens if the conditions of your scene change? Well, frankly, the lighting conditions and the scene don’t vary so quickly that you can’t react. In trying several recent shoots in Manual, I found I rarely had to reassess my initial settings.

Once I switched to Manual, I found that I was able to get exactly what I needed. I never have over- or under-exposed shots, nor did I have blurs with action or grain with stills. I’m not saying every shot is now perfect, but they’re far closer to that than before, and nearly everything is salvageable in editing.

Finally, the nice thing about shooting today is that you’re not using resources to experiment. In the past, if you wanted to try more manual processes, you’d experiment on film, which had a hard cost. Now you can go out and experiment, with it only costing your time. But, usually going out and shooting is fun and a great use of time.

So - flip the dial to M. See what different setups and starting points yield, and soon you’ll be a happy convert.

New Orleans loves parades. Not only do we have weeks of them during the Mardi Gras season, but we have them scattered throughout the rest of the year. For Saint Patrick’s Day, we have several throughout the weekend.

On Saturday - Saint Patrick’s Day Eve - we headed to the Irish Channel section of New Orleans for the Irish Channel Parade.

The floats are just as elaborate as those you’d see during some of the Mardi Gras parades. And despite this being a holiday full of Irish traditions, we certainly add our own twists in New Orleans.

The special throws during the parade are cabbage - yes, heads of cabbage you can take home to your corned beef, cook, and eat! Also find yourself plenty of other green throws like Irish Spring soap.

This shooting experience was fun, surrounded by friends and parade goers. I always try to capture the excitement of the events, grabbing motion, showing depth, and getting colors to pop. I also love the pictures where you see candid poses and true emotion, avoiding poses as much as possible.

Next year hope your Saint Patrick’s Day is as fun as ours ☘️☘️