Sun Flare {the before}

As I mentioned in the post above, this capture has more issues than I care to list :)  It was taken a year ago, during my first photography class.  I had been shooting in Manual for a couple weeks and was clearly struggling with exposure.  I still have much to learn, but it's photos like these that remind me what a difference a year can make, and motivate me to press on.

A glimpse at my editing software.  I do almost all of my post-processing in Lightroom, and open up Photoshop as a last resort because it's much more time consuming.

 

ps. That one on the left?  A good example of why a "really good camera" does not necessarily equal really good photographs.  Yes, I have upgraded camera bodies and lenses since then, but this Nikon D3000 was (is) more than capable of taking beautiful photos in Manual... if you know what you are doing. ☺