Pulled off my first paid gig a month or two ago. I was nervous as anything. Thank G-d the Blesofskis are one of the most chilled people I know and they made it a lot easier. Overall I did a decent job. They were very happy, however I am always looking for things I messed up with.

Im going to try to post an evaluation of myself after each gig, we'll see how that goes.

What I am happy with: 1. I got there early and scouted the scene for lighting, settings etc.

2. I found some cool backlighting in middle and utilized it a bit.

3. Looked for patterns, and overall snapped some great shots.

Things that I messed up/could learn from

1. Make sure the area is clear of rubbish. (Check out that plastic string on the grass.)

2. Use a smaller aperture when dealing with more than one person, or when dealing with a close up and the subject is facing slightly to the side (straight on, or more to side both work with large apertures, straight on because both eyes could be in focus, more to the side because it's okay if the other eye is not in focus, but when it's a bit to the side then it just looks like you missed).

(if you check out the larger sizes, you could see that the dude on the right is slightly out of focus)

3. Don't shoot up at someone on a bright day, the sky will totally overexpose and spill into anything your shooting at. Not pretty unless you're going for that look. (I don't have any pics of this, they weren't worth saving.)

4. Shoot at smaller apertures when dealing with subjects moving at or away from you to allow a larger margin for error with focusing.

(again, in the large version you could see the running kid is slightly out of focus)

And that's all folks.