My Favourite Photos – April

I just realised that I never posted my favourite April photos. A lot happened that month — my DSLR’s autofocus died and I had to use point-and-shoot cameras for most of April. I got my first paying job, a bat mitzvah, and had to shoot that with a borrowed camera body. Just try getting someone to lend you a DSLR camera body on a holiday! Then I had to scrounge cards when I discovered that Ed’s old XT took CF cards and I only had SD. I was sick for almost a week in the middle, and that’s when I missed a day in Project 365 for the first time. Ironically, I’m fairly certain that I took photos that day, deleted them, and emptied the trash when I was editing the nearly 1000 bat mitzvah photos (final number was closer to 480 shots).

So some of my favourites this month are from the bat mitzvah. I had a tough time shooting Shira Rina’s portrait in a not-very-beautiful synagogue hall with scratched walls. I ended up shooting her portrait in a stairwell opposite the men’s room, which is why I couldn’t back up far enough to get a good distance. Luckily, she looked down, straight into the camera for this shot. I learned from the experience not to try a “looking up your nose” angle again.

I don’t know why I like this photo of Shira Rina with one of her friends so much but I just do. Maybe it’s the contrasting colouring — black/white clothing, brown/black hair. Or maybe it’s the way Shira Rina’s blue eyes show up. This photo really appeals to me.

This is one of those “Awwww, how cute!” shots. What could be more photogenic than a pretty girl in a flowered dress with a bunch of balloons balanced on her head? 🙂 Most of the kids in this family were very comfortable in front of a camera. That made my job a lot easier because I didn’t have to stalk them!

This photo of Shira Rina inviting her grandmother to dance was one of those chance shots that I almost didn’t get. I barely managed to get them both in the same frame before the circle of girls closed around them. I’m glad that the light was hitting their faces so that you can see the expressions.

On Israel’s Independence Day (Yom Atzmaut), I dragged my cameras and tripod to the top of the hill to photograph fireworks. I discovered that if you take the photo in RAW, you can really push the colours a lot more in post-processing and see sparks that aren’t normally all that visible in the JPG.

Of course, I had to try a flag photo. This string of flags was hanging in front of the building where I work. I shot from below, towards the sun. It was too hazy to get a sun flare but I got the light above the top flag.

The last photos were all done with point-and-shoot cameras when my DSLR was in the shop. I don’t have a macro lens, so if I want really close photos, it has to be with the Canon PowerShot S5IS or my husband’s Samsung.

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