The Key to Taking Pictures Like a Professional Photographer Giveaway!!

I am very excited to share this beautiful book with you today, called The Key to Taking Pictures Like a Professional Photographer, by Katie Evens.

I love books and can never have enough. Especially a book I can learn from. Last year for Mother's Day Rob and I decided it was time for me to move up from my point and shoot camera, to a DSLR, so we went out and purchased a new Nikon D3000. A great introductory camera. Recently, I decided to take my camera off Auto and switch to Manual. That was a very exciting move for me.

With the help from The Key to Taking Pictures Like a Professional Photographer, I am working on moving past just snapping a picture, and taking time to frame, taking lighting into consideration, and am actually starting to notice the difference between good and not so good lighting. I can also play with the adjustments of ISO, white balance, aperture, f-stop, and have an idea of how they work.

My next move is to purchase a prime lens. At the moment I have the lens my camera came with, which is fine, but I really want to experiment with bokeh. Also, I am in love with photos where the subject is in focus but the back ground is blurry. With my current lens, that just isn't possible. My aperture is always fully open, but there isn't much blur, if any at all. This is another way the book has helped me. Where do I even start with lenses?

I am also braving photo editing. Not a lot, because I still find it confusing, but at least I'm making some small attempts. We have Photoshop, and there are so many tools, and I don't know how to use any of them. Most of my photo editing is done with Rob, because he is more familiar with the program than I am. There are some great tips for adjusting the colours, saturation, cropping etc in the book as well. I'm just not completely there yet. Just working on figuring out my camera and how to take a picture is my focus at the moment. I hope to graduate to photo editing in the near future:)

Here is a peak at the table of contents so you have an idea of what else you can expect to learn from this book.

Today I am very excited to be able to giveaway a copy of this beautiful and helpful book to one lucky winner.

Blog Giveaway Directory

Nikki Designs Giveaway

Every month Nikki Designs has a giveaway. I was fortunate to visit her home for the VI Etsy Team Meet Up in April, and have a tour of her amazing sewing room. She makes quality linens from organic fabrics.

This is definitely a giveaway worth entering.

This month she is giving away a linen/cotton gift bag, a bar of Bare With Me soap and a lavender sachet.

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Head over to her blog to enter this soothing giveaway:)