Stamps, Scraps, and Starbucks: M is for Makes you work harder

Heres a little back story. I LOVE pictures! Duh, right? So 3 years ago I ~~conned~~ asked my husband for a dSLR camera. I end up with a cannon rebel xti thats pretty awesome. Up until last year the thing had never been off AUTO. For the last year its been on av (i had no idea what that meant, mind u. It just caused blurry backgrounds some times, which i like) I did not turn a dial or press any button while in av mode either, so it was kinda an auto mode for me too. Sad but true people. 3 years of a fancy shmancy camera that i was using as a heavy point and shoot. Alot of times i would go places and leave it at home. I would go months with out taking pics, cus they all just looked ok. Basically the thing confused me. The manual was a joke. I was at a loss. I pretty much hated the camera. I had no clue how it worked or what the bleep f/stop and all that crap meant. NO MORE I SAY!!!

First off my awesome friend mac told me about Magic lantern dvds. Basically this guy goes through your manual and explains EVERYTHING. this helped a ton. i now know what all of those crazy buttons do and kinda when to use them!!!! My mom and I spent 3 hours at the book store tues perusing photography books. We ended up buying The complete guide to digital photography by Steve Luck It explained sooooooooooooooo much. I now know the differance between f/stop, shutter speed, iso and depth of field. I think? Lets just say were working on it!!!!!

Wenesday we went out to the park to hone our skills. I ended up taking about 300 pics. 50 were in focus and looked pretty good!!!!!!!! That alone made my day :) I now feel like theres hope for me :) Here are my top 9 favs completely unedited.