Using Available Light

On the morning of my daughter's 2nd month out of her mother's womb I took a picture of her held by her mommy.

The day was bright with our front door open for natural ventilation. A little of the morning sun was striking our floor. I saw the sunlight being reflected onto my wife and daughter sitting on a chair. I took shots on auto mode and left for work.

When I arrived home from work my wife was uploading our photos. I noticed the effect of the reflected light on the pictures so I decided to post-process some with GIMP, adding a little saturation and using my ever-trusted Manny Librodo Sharpening Plug-in (for GIMP) and of course laying the copyright mark.

I remembered one article I've read about using available light. The photo above is an example of such, I did not need to use any other light except for my pop-up flash just to soften the shadows a little and the resulting photograph looks more like a shot with strobe light.

I only regret using auto-mode when I took the shots, for one, if I used manual I would have focused on my son's face (specifically the eyes) rather than on his arms (which the camera chose).

I'm still learning...