In a Nutshell: Thirty Days of Christmas Joy: Growth Mindset in Action

I am not one to accept defeat easily. I tend to pick myself up, brush off the dust, and try another approach. So here goes . . .

My sister-in-law has asked me to photograph a couple of important occasions for her children, and in both instances, I experienced significant anxiety because of my camera's functioning and my lack of ability to make it work correctly.

So, after a session of trying to photograph her precious newborn grandchild, I determined to figure out not only the problem with my camera, but also how to master my camera so I can capture these special family moments with expertise and ease.

I've spent the better part of the last two weeks honing my craft: reading photography how-to blogs, fiddling with every dial and setting on my Nikon D7000, drooling over new lenses, and purchasing a MacBook Pro for editing. I'm using a Nikkor AF-S 18-200mm 3.5-5.6G lense, with a mal-functioning autofocus, hence manual focus only.

As in any endeavor, practice is essential. I've challenged myself to capture a Christmas-themed image each day for thirty days leading up to Christmas. In doing so, I am using only Manual mode on my camera and learning to set the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO for various settings. This challenge also is forcing me to step outside my comfort zone (translated: yes, I have introverted tendencies that I must overcome.)

All of that to say: here are the products of the first week's efforts. These are unedited, straight out of the camera images. Correct exposure has been the goal. In just these few days, I have managed to reduce the number of pictures it takes to get to correct exposure.

Day 1

natural morning indoor light with flash; Exposure ISO 100 f5.3 1/250 at 95mm

Time to get the Christmas dishes out of the cabinet. With natural light streaming into my kitchen, I thought I could use it to light up these dishes. I just couldn't seem to get my settings figured out on this first morning of my Thirty Days of Christmas Joy challenge, so I finally settled for a flash photo, and forced myself to do some more reading to figure out how to let more light into my camera on a shot like this.

Exposure ISO 100 f/36 10 seconds at 112mm

Just for fun to see if I could . . . flashlight writing on a long exposure.

Day 2

outdoors with natural afternoon light . . . Exposure ISO 200 f4 1/200 at 24mm

indoor nighttime with lamp light . . . Exposure ISO 2500 f/4.5 1/50 at 32mm

Day 3

Exposure ISO 200 f/5.3 1/40 at 105mm

Exposure ISO 200 f/5 1/100 at 36mm

Exposure ISO 100 f/36 20 seconds at 90mm

Practicing the twinkle light effect -- do you see it?

Day 4

Exposure ISO 800 f/22 2 seconds at 18mm, without tripod

Definitely learning some lessons: must have a tripod! Crank up the ISO a bit more & avoid using the focal length extremes.

Day 5

Expsosure ISO 1000 f/25 2 seconds +3 exposure compensation at 26mm

Exposure ISO 1000 f/25 1.6 seconds +3 exposure compensation at 26mm

Getting smarter, working better & gaining confidence.

Day 6

cropped in camera; Exposure ISO 1600 f/22 1 second at 170mm

Day 7

Exposure ISO 320 f/8 1/80 +.7 exposure compensation at 48mm

Exposure ISO 320 f/8 1/60 -.3 exposure compensation at 42mm

And a few extras: my helper and a Sunday afternoon practice excursion ... learning to work the dials in manual mode to create a properly exposed image.