Shooting deliberately

Photo Camp Utah was this weekend, and there were some great presentations that did a lot to educate and inspire me. One of the ideas that stuck in my mind was that I tend to be a complacent photographer--I don't go out and make the shot I want often enough, opting instead to wait for the shots to come to me.

This morning I wanted to put the lesson into practice, so when I grabbed my camera to photograph my 18-month-old son in the tub I decided to go for something more than "Cute Baby No. 30." It left me wiping my camera with a towel, but I got in close, dragged my shutter down to 1/20th of a second, and tried to capture the energetic splashing that makes bath time a favorite for my baby boy.

The results are below--"Cute Baby No. 30" first, then the result of some deliberate shooting below. The second shot is necessarily blurry and probably not technically as good, but it's more than just a baby--it's the whole bath experience in a single frame. Click either for a larger view.