I'm not dead & a failed photo shoot

It's been a while since I last posted.  I'm still here and I haven't forgotten about you, I just haven't had much to post.  We are stillllllll waiting for the electric company to come out to upgrade the transformer and get us powered up.  I called yesterday to follow up as tomorrow will make 2 full weeks since my inital request, but all I got was "You're on the list, there are still other people in front of you.  I cannot give you a definite timeframe."

Awesome.  One of the drawbacks to living in rural America is long waits on this type of thing, but I still think the pros outweigh the cons.

I attempted to take some engagement photos of our best couple friends.  I'm not exaggerating with use of the word attempt.  The groom to be, who is usually the most easy going person I know and doesn't comprehend the word shame, got all freaked out and embarrassed because we were shooting close to his house on a main road.  It didn't help that we began to get heckled by residents at the apartment building across the street.  Here's a few shots I managed to salvage somewhat with extensive post processing, but we're going to try again in 2 weeks when they are both off work.

 
Of course some good did come of this, I found some awesome places to shoot.  But when I say things when horribly wrong I meant it.  Between the hecklers and the groom rushing me, I didn't check my display to see if my settings were right.  I'm nowhere near good enough yet to know if my shots are right without checking.  I shot the first several on manual focus, thinking I was on auto.  Nothing but a blurred mess.  Then, something went horribly wrong when I set custom white balance and about half of what I took that day looked like this:

Yeah, getting the green out of these was fun, not.  Not long after this it started raining.

But, lessons learned that day:

Scout the location before the first time you take a "client."  Even though I did this for free, I could have saved us all some time if I'd done a practice run with Babe Jr, or even a cardboard cutout, ha!

Take anyone who's likely to be self conscious or get embarrassed to a more remote location, at least to start out.

Always bring a reflector.  Both of these lovelies have beautiful blue eyes, but he tends to photograph with heavy shadows over his.

Take a deep breath, and don't allow yourself to be rushed.

Try, try, and try again.