"get to know me monday." - w.6

so i have quite a few questions that were left unanswered from my "ask my anything" post way back before our hawaiian vacay.  i've been meaning to answer them because they were all really good ones, so i'm gonna pick a few & answer them each monday for the next few weeks.

nicole asked a few questions.  here they are one by one:

1)  "how are your photos so clean & clear?  do you use photoshop?"

first & foremost, i don't claim to be any sort of photography expert & am still learning new things every day.  and a lot of times, i just get lucky with a shot.  so.... that was the disclaimer.

the most important thing to taking a good picture is good light.  if you have bad lighting, it's gonna be hard to produce a crisp, clear shot.  outdoor natural light is ideal.

i do use photoshop & honestly, that can make a significant difference.  to see some before & after shots, check out my photo blog & you'll see that my straight-outta-the-camera shots don't look quite the same way they look on this blog.  yup, i'ma cheater.

BUT, photoshop doesn't take a crappy picture & make it amazing.  i mean, there are some things you can do to salvage a shot {vintage tints, textures, black & white conversions, etc.} but if you're looking for something you can blow up & have look as good {or better than} life, ya gotta have a good shot out of the camera.  period.

2)  "are you using manual on your camera?"

yup.  and i am stilllll learning.  i swore to myself that if we spent the dinero on a decent dslr, i wasn't gonna use it as a point & shoot.  so i dove right in & attempted to learn manual & haven't looked back.  if you have a dslr & are intimidated by your manual settings, don't be.  i still switch things around & experiment & i often take bad shots because of the settings.  but i am learning.

are you brand new to digital photography too?  the tutorial i often swear by when learning your camera is the "31 days to a better photo" series at life with my three boybarians.  somewhere around her day ten tutorial a light bulb went off & it all made sense for me.  well, enough sense for me to start intelligently experimenting.  so check it out, yo.

3) "how do you get the photos on your page so big?"

if your photos are still loading small in blogger, there might be an easy fix.  go to your settings tab in your dashboard then scroll down to the very bottom where it says "global settings" & hit the "updated editor" option.  now, when you upload a picture it will let you choose whether it's small, medium, large, or extra large.  mine are all extra large.

hope that helps!

and that's it for today.  are y'all still liking the ask me anything posts?  if so, keep the questions coming & see your answers in a couple weeks.  ask away in the comments, tweet me, facebook me, or shoot me an email, mmmmk?

and don't forget to vote!  don't ever, ever forget to vote.  please?