Day 20 ~ Me-Made-May 2014and a little photography talk

Another day heading to the city, so this time I'm wearing NEWLOOK 6192 skirt with my new unblogged white Kirsten Kimono Tee underneath a rtw turquoise jacket.  With a few minutes to spare, thought I'd work on my photography skills before I left.  Not only does one have to think about the outfit shot, but how one presents one's outfit, backgrounds, lighting, focus, is one's eyes closed or not and a myriad of other details?!   We all know how difficult it is to get a focused, light-filled shot of ourself standing in a flattering pose to showcase our me-made garment.  I finally had to ditch the thought of self-timed shots today and my sweet daughter took the photo below for me.

Margo, who not only sews beautiful outfits, but also takes gorgeous light-filled photos, wrote a post Creating in the Gap's Photo Tips From an Amateur. I'm not so sure she's the 'Amateur' she so humbly bespeaks.  This girl is good!  :)   One thing that stood out, was that she said to 'shine some light on your butt' and that's what I tried to do and feel like I got good results with the lighting, but struggled with the self-timed 'focus' on my Canon Rebel T3.  I also changed the 'light' feature to 'sunlight' and that made an improvement also.  I really need to get a remote and think that will make taking my photos a whole lot easier. 

These are a few outtakes because of the blurriness, but wanted to share a little of what I'm struggling with.  All photos are basically the same angle and distance from the camera.  I'm using the camera's self-timer and a tripod in all the photos below.  The photo below was set in 'auto'....

....almost the same exact photo here with the only exception I remembered to change the light setting to 'Daylight'.  What do you think?

Here I changed my angle a little and slowed the shutter speed a little, but still struggle with the unfocusedness.  I do like the way the camera is capturing the light better though.  Light is still set on 'Daylight'.

I'm open to suggestions from you more experienced folks!  :)