Soft in Bed, Bath & Beyond

The first photo was taken inside Bed, Bath and Beyond. The store manager came up all important and fussy and wanted to know what I was doing. I explained that I was learning photography and our "assignment" this week was Soft and that I thought this display just radiated soft. His whole posture became "soft", he nodded his head wisely, said "perfect choice" and that there were some rugs about two aisles away I should look at too!!! And walked off smiling. (I did look at the rugs and I've posted that picture, too.)

Saturday I had the absolutely perfect photo op for this challenge. As I was walking through the mall I passed an older man sitting on a bench with a young toddler sound asleep on his chest. He had his cheek lightly resting on the little girl's head with his eyes closed and a sweet smile on his face. It was such a wonderful tableau that I turned around, walked up to them and asked (quietly) if I could take their picture. He smiled, yes, and I took 3 of the most wonderful photos. I thought. When I got home all three of them were blurred!!! I had the 70-200mm lens on the camera which is longer and heavier than the 18-55mm I normally use and apparently became very careless with the way I was holding it. I also had the camera set for aperture priority when I should have probably used shutter priority and a high shutter speed. I'm posting the picture just so you can see what an opportunity I missed. Another hard lesson learned.