We went to Vegas last weekend for a family friend’s wedding.

Aside from generally having a good time, it also rekindled my love of photography. I used to carry my trusty “Tizzy” (Panasonic Lumix TZ-1) everywhere and shoot all kinds of things, but once I started working full-time, I just didn’t have as many opportunities to shoot my favorite subjects (landscapes, macros, basically anything that didn’t move).

As part of my all-out Father’s Day present to Peter this year, I got him (us) the digital SLR camera we’d been talking about getting for YEARS. Even though it takes lovely pictures, I hadn’t really played around much with it and just left it on the basic auto settings.

At our friend’s wedding, though, the groom asked us to take some pictures as a precaution in case something happened with their photographer. Of course, I couldn’t/wouldn’t step on the photographer’s shoes & get in their way (not to mention, I am NOT even close to a professional!), but nothing was stopping me from shooting things as I saw them!

Peter took some nice pictures during the ceremony (while I was busy trying to calm an EXTREMELY upset baby. Eventually, her genius mama figured out she had a really poopy diaper and all was well with the world again).

Detail shots have always been my favorite, and I think my forte. (The subject doesn’t move!) We also have a lens that works well for them, so I took a lot of detail shots.

The bride does flowers for weddings on the side and they were BEAUTIFUL. There were three different kinds of centerpieces and while they were all gorgeous, I loved shooting these big tall candelabras.

One of the things I had the most fun with was trying to shoot the dancing. With all of my point and shoot cameras, I’ve never been able to adjust the settings enough to get decent pictures in the dark without a flash. Even though none of the pictures I took were stunning, I was able to get several that were actually in focus & bright enough to see detail, which was a huge improvement from my old pictures!

Being able to play around with so many different settings was so exciting and inspiring for me. It rekindled my love of photography, and now I’m excited to start playing again!

By luck, I got the cutest picture of Emmie (with grandma) the next day. Her expression just kills me!