Photo Safari

I was in charge of this year's anniversary trip plans and some how I managed to keep them a secret until the day before the main event! It was merely the evening before that I told Mon Amour that we were going to go on what is called a "Photo Safari" - which is basically a walking tour led by a professional photographer who will teach you some basics about photography!

Mon Amour was quite excited (or he put on a good front...but I think it was genuine). Mon Amour had the camera, and I took notes as we headed off on our 4 hour tour.

It was a very enlightening tour - we learned a lot! As our guide pointed out, you can read the manual and it will tell you how to adjust everything, but it won't actually tell you why you would want to adjust those things.

So that is what we learned. There is still much more room for practice and perfection, but I think now we both feel a little more equipped to use our camera.

Here are some of my favorites from the trip:

Did you know there is a memorial to Einstein in DC? I had no idea. I have been there many times and yet had no clue it existed. Its cool. And huge. And if you stand in front of him and talk to him, it echos back (an intentional part of the design). Coolness.

The cheery looking face below belongs to our guide, who kindly used himself as a model when needed. Here we were learning a most practical trick. When taking pictures indoors with the flash - you know how faces can get all shiny and the background can get all dark and gloomy? Like this:

To fix that (and pardon the blur and such below. Tis not the best picture, but you will get the gist of the lesson) slow down the shutter speed so that it has time to take in not just the light from the flash, but also some of the ambient light from behind.

Ahh, less glare. More background. Success.

We learned other cool tricks too - like how to make moving cars disappear from your pictures. And other, more practical things.