Finding Inspirations at Atlanta Botanical Gardens

A trip to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens has been on the to-do list for quite some time now. I've been wanting to explore the wonderful world of photography, and Callie's been eager to design stencils to start screen printing fabric. We were able to shimmy away from our desks early today, so with two motives, and one Scoutmob deal later, here we are!

It started with a digital photography book my extremely talented wedding photographer, Doug Levy, mailed me. I've always been an art savvy person, but always chose a paintbrush over a camera, and unfortunately was never able to take a photography class. I enjoy snapping away during photo ops with my little Sony Cybershot, and love to find interesting compositions, so I want to see if I have a knack for it.

WELL, today I found out that I really need to learn how to use a camera! I borrowed an old camera from my soon to be mother-in-law, and I'm not sure if I can blame the poor quality of my photos entirely on the camera. Today, I wanted to be able to teach myself how to take pictures with a sharp focal point, and blurry background. After reading the manual, I thought it was going to be a piece of pie, but a lot of them also came out SUPER grainy.. I also felt like the brightness and contrast levels were unsalvageable in Photoshop. Obviously, I have some technicalities to work through.

We did have a really great afternoon at the gardens despite the infamous Georgia heat! Thank goodness Caribou Coffee was a hop, skip, and jump away so we could cap off the day with some refreshing caffeine!

I know this will take a lot of practice, and I'm not going to give up just yet... I think I need a hands on overview on some basics. Anyone willing to help a determined girl out???