Morning with Josie

Guess what? I found some snow up in New Hampshire and Vermont this weekend. It's wasn't pretty white fluffy new snow, and it wasn't on the trees. It was more or less crunchy dirty icy stuff under your feet. But still.....it was snow......and after the snowless winter we are having, it was a welcomed sight.

I took a new friend out on a photography outing with me yesterday morning. Her name is Josie and she is 15 years old. I met Josie through her parents, who we actually met at the breakfast restaurant down in the village (yes......very small town life) Josie had a small point and shoot camera when I met her last summer, and she showed me some of the images she had taken.

Wow.

This girl has an eye.

Josie recently upgraded to a bridge camera, which she loves. Her and I headed out together at 6:30 yesterday morning for a photo shoot/lesson. Josie has no formal training, and she is still at the point of keeping her camera on P mode. BUT.......she has the eye and was born to be a photographer. She mentioned to me that she has a 1 hour ride on the shcool bus each morning, and she just stares out the window and is in awe of the beauty of the sunrises she sees.

Yup......she's got the photography bug! :-)

Unfortunatley, the clouds won over and we didn't have one of those gorgeous sunrises to photograph. We did find a little bit of color in the sky and stopped to take some shots. I taught her about the rule of thirds, and I also taught her when shooting a landscape, it is more pleasing to the eye to have 2/3 land and 1/3 sky, or visa versa (1/3 land and 2/3 sky).......try not to have the horizon line split the image in half. I also taught her that it's important to have a forefront interest in a landscape, and we also touched on the importance of leading lines. Here is one of the images I took, and I'm sure Josie has one similar to mine (who knows.....hers may be better than mine!)

Day 334/365

This was taken on Duck Pond Rd in Barton VT. I asked Josie what else she was interested in shooting, and she really wants to take some nice wildlife pictures.

Well, the wildlife Gods were with me once again, and no sooner did we come across a herd of deer grazing in a field on the side of the road. They were on the passenger side of my car, so I shut the engine off, Josie put the window down and we used the car as a blind, and she got a FANTASTIC shot of a deer looking straight into the lens of her camera!!!!! I was sooooo happy for her. My camera was in the backseat at the time, but I was happier just to watch her shoot away. It was wonderful!!! :-) The deer scattered off into the woods, but one of them ran the opposite direction of the others and crossed the street. I was then able to go to the back of my vehicle and grab my camera. Josie and I waited for that deer to cross back, and sure enough, she did.

It was an awesome morning, and I look forward to taking Josie out shooting again one of these days. I have more images to share from our outing on tomorrow's blog.

I hope you enjoyed your weekend too!!