guess who is walking?!

She still crawls some, but is on the move. Each day her number of steps in a row grows. It is so exciting. She is so proud of herself – and she has quite the loud cheering section each time she sets off. She prefers to walk towards me so that has made getting pictures a bit hard. At least daylight pictures when I like the lighting. So in addition to sharing her exciting news, I thought I’d share how I was able to capture her walking to me.

Set Up: Knowing I had to use the self timer on my camera, I started by setting the camera on the ground. My aperture was set at f/2.8, so I needed to be sure she stayed the about the same distance from the camera while she was walking if I wanted her to stay in the depth of field (stay in focus). Imagine an upside down triangle: my camera was the bottom point, she was the top right and I would position myself at the top left. I placed a cloth on the ground to focus on before I set the timer. I focused on the cloth instead of her in case she moved before I got over to her I could just set her right back where the cloth was and insure she was in focus. So…once my camera was focused on the cloth, I started the timer. (she was upset about me interrupting her walking practice)

Take 1: I stood her up, then moved to my spot and let her walk to me. However, she was too fast and beat the timer and I forgot to throw the cloth out of the picture.

Take 2: Repeated the above steps, but remembered to toss the cloth out and had her start a little later. However, I didn’t like that our faces were cropped out.

Take 3: I set my camera on a push toy nearby and repeated above steps. Keeper!

Take 4: Same as above, just another keeper.

The best part about her walking is the end. She smiles the whole time, but when she finally gets to me she falls into me and wraps her arms around my neck with a big grin and giggle. The Best.