Giveaway and Review: The Key to Taking Pictures E-Book (CLOSED)

This past Christmas my husband surprised me with a DSLR camera. I have been using it and loving it - I even made a cute strap cover for it - but I have had no idea what I am doing. There are all these buttons and dials... I was really intimidated by my camera, so I just left it in auto mode, which totally defeats the purpose of having a fancy camera, right?

I recently decided that it was time I learned a little about my camera, photography, and taking better pictures. I started looking for information online and came across the Katie Evans Photography blog. Her photos are stunning, and she has a really informative post on capturing great blog photos. I noticed in her sidebar that she recently published an e-book titled The Key to Taking Pictures Like a Professional Photographer. I read through the information about the e-book and emailed Katie to tell her how excited I was to check it out. Well, Katie was kind enough to send me a copy of the e-book and generously offered to giveaway a copy here on my blog (more on that below). Thanks, Katie!

This e-book is all kinds of awesome. It is 65 pages of valuable information, and my confidence has skyrocketed after reading this book. I mentioned a week or so ago that I had purchased a new camera lens. This is after having read Katie's book and recommendations. I bought a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens, which means that I can open the aperture way up and get awesome bokeh (blur) in the background of my photos. I love this lens. I took a bunch of notes while reading the e-book and brought them outside with my camera, my new lens, and my girls and started practicing. I practiced taking action shots, portraits, shots with backlighting. I haven't used auto mode on my camera since. Now I can take awesome shots of my girls like this...

I actually understand ISO and aperture (f-stop) and shutter speed. I understand how they work together to properly expose a photo. I know what I need to do to stop motion in a photo or blur motion to show movement. I know how to set up a shot to get the best possible picture, how to take a picture indoors (and with a flash when necessary), and how to properly edit my pictures. And this is all thanks to Katie and her e-book.

Have I said enough to convince you that this book is fantastic, cause I could go on :) Here are a few sample pages from the e-book...

Would you like the chance to win a free copy of Katie's e-book The Key to Taking Pictures Like a Professional Photographer? Of course you would! Here's the lowdown...

This giveaway is now CLOSED.

Mandatory entry:

• You must be a follower of Gwenny Penny via Google Friend Connect in order to enter. If you are a follower, leave one comment on this post telling me that you are.

Extra entries:

1. Become a follower of Katie's blog. Leave another comment on this post telling me that you follow Katie's blog.
2. Like Katie Evans Photography on Facebook. Leave another comment on this post telling me that you liked Katie on Facebook.

This giveaway is open to anyone with an email address, so make sure you either leave an email address in your comment or that your email is attached to your Blogger profile. This giveaway will be open until 11:59pm (EST) on Friday, July 1st. The winner will be chosen using a random number generator. I will notify the winner via email, and they will have until Wednesday, July 6th at 7:00am (EST) to respond before I choose another winner. Thanks for entering, and good luck!

One more awesome thing to share... if you don't win the giveaway you can purchase the book at a $2 discount for the next two weeks (ends Friday July 8th)! Just enter "GWENNYPENNY" at checkout. Click HERE to purchase The Key to Taking Pictures Like a Professional Photographer.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was given this e-book for free, but my opinions about this book and my rave review are all my own.