A dance and a photography lesson

 I was asked to take pictures at my niece and nephew's home school dance on Saturday night. It was at our church with a whole lot of kids having a whole lot of fun. My nephew Colby's band played, which I was able to hear all of, but only see a little bit due to some serious photography troubles. He was so great! And they hired a swing dance instructor who taught all the kids different steps and they actually almost all were participating, even after the lessons. That was pretty fun to watch.

It was pretty tricky taking pictures in that lighting, and actually the whole event was one big confusing photography lesson for me! Meaning, I realized how much I still have to learn. I was taking more formal shots in a back room and they had photography lights to use, which I really had no idea what to do with. It helped when we realized after about an hour that they had the wrong bulbs in them and they had a softer light option. Then, I was trying all different camera settings to get the right coloring. I would figure out the perfect setting and then the next group would come along and it would look completely different than the picture I just took (if that makes any sense!). I was so frustrated, and I think that since I wasn't shooting totally in manual mode, my camera was actually adjusting to the lighter or brighter clothing they had on, or the number of people in the shot which would sometimes block some of the light. Due to needing a pretty slow shutter speed, some also ended up a little blurry. UGH!! And to top it all off, I had the stress of handing over the pictures exactly as they are, instead of getting to crop or edit anything. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I would have wanted to edit hundreds of pictures of people I don't know! But I know so many of them could have looked much better if I could have fixed a few things here and there on the computer. Oh well, I did the best I could and there were still some good pictures. 

Here are some of my adorable niece and nephew:)

And here is Amanda with her "boyfriend that's not really a boyfriend", Austin, or maybe he is by now:)

So cute. 

Luckily, there were two other people taking pictures and one lucky lady got to take the kids' pictures outside. With NATURAL LIGHT.... now, that I could manage. 

Photography issues aside, it was still really fun to go check out the dance and visit with some people I hadn't seen in a really long time. Thanks for asking me, Steph!