What I learned today

I was asked to photograph a children's birthday party today. It was fun. I really needed the photographic exercise. Everything I shoot, I learn from. I'm used to shooting indoors with my Bee's. So take me outside with natural light and I have to start thinking on my feet. Like i said, good exercise. It forces you to make split second decisions. What am I going to capture? A scene? A close up? Where's the sun? What angle should I capture it to catch the mood? What background would work better? Where are the colors that would make it stand out more? Am I shooting only head shots? What I found was, after I started to relax a bit, I started looking for these things instinctively. AT first I was nervous and off balance because I was 'out of my element'. I really had nothing to fall back on, since I hadnt photographed a childrens party before. What did I learn? 1) Dont be too picky. Shoot alot! You never know when that magic moment is going to present itself. 2) Dont' chimp too much or you'll miss that magic moment and all the other moments too, come to think of it. 3)Kids are people.(I knew this one already) Little people, but you can talk to them and ask them to smile. 4)make sure ALL the extra memory cards are 'formatted' BEFORE you need them. Ya, I had to use a recovery disk on some when I used a card that wasn't formatted for some reason. 5) Dont be shy. Your the photographer! Introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are, what you do and ALWAYS have business cards!!!
Well, I dont have rights to any of the photos I took, to be able to post them here. So instead, I'll post some photos that were taken today of my brother, who was hamming it up.