Advice ~ and then she snapped

Since we are on the subject of improving photography skills, I thought I would give the meme  and then, she {snapped} a shot today. 

In this meme we are to give advice about photography. Now remember, I am not one to give advice often. I know my photography skill needs much improvement. To be totally honest about advice, there are many days I don't want to hear it at all. But you see, the advice I have for the many novices out there, like me, is not my advice at all. So I figure, today, it might be okay. 

So listen up and pay attention! 

First tip of the day: 

Comes from my cousin Anne. She has a delicious little blog she calls Simply Sweeter. She not only takes great photos, her cookies, cakes and fudge are just to die for. 

Anne's word exaclty: "Sometimes your photos are blurry." 

I remember being stunned. I remember saying " Blurry? They are? Really?  She gave me many tips that day like: using your continuous button when shooting the kids, using the intelligent face button detection and lighting and boy did we talk about lighting.  

The tips were very helpful. But, there was one thing she said to me that really blew me away. 

You ready for this one? She said: "Have you had your eyes tested lately? " WHAT!?! Well, she says "Your pictures are blurry." 

So, I had my eyes tested and yes, I need glasses. I even had the prescription filled. But, there are times I just don't feel like wearing them.

Then there was that day Liz and I were at the park. 

Elizabeth and I met friends of ours, Ellie and her daughter Tia. You may know them from the blog Shine. Her photos are just beautiful! Ellie knows a lot about cameras and I think she is a real photographer. She was asking me questions like "What is the aperture in your camera set on?" 

My response was an very intelligent  ~ "Huuuu. . .?" She goes on to explain sometimes my photos are just to bright and I can adjust the settings. "Oh!" I say. . . "adjust the settings." Just so I didn't appear stupid, I pretending I knew exactly what she was talking about.   She then started throwing questions at me like: What settings are you on? What speed are you on?  What this? What that? 

She made me dizzy. The only response I could come up with was. . .What???? And then she says . . ."You know, Lisa, you really should read the manual to your camera." 


"Woooo! Okay what a minute.....What??? "Read the manual to my camera??? Uhhhh?" That will help??? I mean, I have seen people read manuals. I live with people who read manuals all the time. . . But. . .mmmm, I wonder where it is?  

I went home and searched. . .I found the manual I had in French. I even found the manual I had in Spanish. It's to bad too because, I can't read either one of those  languages. 

Weeks went by. Finally I went to the internet to find a manual for my camera in the only language I know. 

So here's Ellie's Second Tip of the Day: 

Read your manual. 

I guess when it comes right down to it, I do have photography advice. . .Are you ready for this? Do not throw out the manual that is written in your language.  They are so much easier to read that way.