I’ve been taking pictures lately. A solid year or more went by where I hardly put my aging DSLR to use, but lately I’ve been spending a bit more time with it. I got it dusted off and warmed up in preparation for the birth of my second child this month, and it turns out that while I may be a bit rusty behind the shutter, I’ve managed to retain a good amount of the skills I learned since I first got serious about DSLR photography about five years ago.

“Child in Blue” – copyright 2014 Marshall Stokes

Sometimes I wind up with a great shot almost entirely by accident – something I would wager many photographers, both amateur and professional, experience frequently. I snapped this pic one handed, with the camera held off to my side. No viewfinder was used, and that’s precisely why the photo works as well as it does. Before I got this shot, I probably would never have considered excluding one third of my daughter’s face from a picture. It happened this way because she typically won’t sit still when I have a camera in front of my face pointed at her, but the light and color was so nice at that moment that I clicked off a few bursts of the shutter without using the viewfinder, before the little girl realized what was going on.

Equipment & Settings

• Nikon D300
• Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G AF-S Prime
• ISO 500
• Exposure time 1/100s
• f-number 1.4