I decided to do candid portraiture. People are just far more interested than taking pictures of buildings all day.I took the image below at golden hour a few days ago with my Nikon D90 on a 35mm lens.

1. Starting Point. WHY I took this picture: I was taking pictures of the swans, who happened to be extra gregarious that day (they normally hiss at people). I noticed a herd of them all swimming to one side of the lake and a girl feeding them lettuce. I liked how she was wearing neutral whites and beiges that complimented the swans and the trees. I wanted to capture their interaction because like I said, these birds are not as friendly as they were in this picture. I cropped out her bf because he was wearing a red buffalo print shirt that ended up taking away from the neutrality of colors present.

2. Focus and Frame. Went into a local boutique yesterday and wanted to get some shots of the store. Its a bit cramped, and the incandescent lighting is hard to shoot in without everything looking yellow. I decided instead of trying to capture all of the clothes and jewelry, I would just try to capture the owner surrounded by hints of her merch. The last picture I tried to frame the hanging jewelry right at the edge out of focus.

3. Composition

I went to Rifle Paper Co. in Orlando to visit some old co-workers and friends as well as snag some pretty stationery at their sidewalk sale. I spent a lot of time trying to frame the shots and make sure I was getting people undisturbed by my camera presence that I didn't spend as much time making them look visually appealing with weight and alignment.

In the the next set of photos I tried to play with texture and distance. I also wanted to work on looking for imaginary lines. I went to Downtown Credo's coffee location in the Florida Hospital where the community is used to having artists come in and take pictures. It was a lot easier to ask people I could take a few photos.

4. Angles

Got to take some pictures over Thanksgiving of my new family, and utilized the different views with my nephew, Finn.