Speedlite

So this post is about my new speedlite for my camera, if you just want to see pics of the kids scroll down.  Why did I need a speedlite, well, I have been asked to do some wedding photography for a very dear friend (little nervous, but I'll do the best I can).  The church they have chosen is very quaint & pretty, but also very limited on natural light.  I got a speedlite (which really is a kind of flash) to use to properly expose the pics, plus, with winter coming soon, I really wanted one to take pics of the girls--why not just use the flash built-in to my camera??  Well, anyone whose ever taken a photo with flash will notice that everything gets washed out when you use flash.  I wanted a speelite so I could control the amount of flash used & so I could control the direction of the flash.  To get a much better flash photo you can bounce your flash off of walls, etc. onto your subject, but not make it direct, so the results look much more like natural light.  Also, a speedlite is much more powerful so you can be further away from your subject & still get proper exposure, which in the end will probably be what I use it for the most.  You will be seeing many speedlite practice photos over the next few weeks as I've got to get decent with this in order to capture my friend's wedding.  I may also get my hubs to pose for me, so I can practice on a more stationary subject :)  Here are a few of my first shots with it.  Mostly, I just wanted to be sure it worked & it does.  Have a wonderful day!

Do I look cool or what?? Not really, but that gives you a good shot of the flash attached to my hot shoe on my camera

I had the flash straight up with the bounce card out, looks fairly natural--you can always tell it's flash b/c of the pinpoints in the eyes

This was about 45 degrees bounced off the white door behind her

she was eating a snickers ice cream bar just in case you're wondering