Work on metering

I have been doing a lot of reading, mostly on the interwebz (google is great!) and talking to other, more experienced photogs about their exposure technique and metering.

Usually, how I work is constantly adjusting.  Take a shot, adjust, take a shot, adjust.  This works OK, but it is really mentally straining. Maybe if I had more experience, I would not worry about it, like driving a stick shift, at first it is all you can think about, but then it comes natural, however I am not there.  I want to connect with my clients, not with my camera.

After looking at others photos and talking with them, I began noticing their settings rarely change for a session.  Obviously if they went from full sun to shade, they would readjust, but other then that, the same exposure was being used. 
That got me to thinking, just because I angle my camera up to the sky, where it is more bright, doesn't mean the actual light has changed for the subject, so why am I adjusting?  This lead me to a very informative thread on a well known message board and I was so excited to go out and try it!
Who better to test this on, then my cutest kid contest winner?

I metered once, for the sky, and adjusted accordingly and then left my exposure alone!  This was so hard to do because I kept looking through my viewfinder and seeing under/over exposure notices, but I trusted my gut to just leave it. 
Here are the results!

All the following photos are shot at F2.8, 1/1000, ISO 200 with my 35mm.

Now, you can generally see the lighting is the same. However, see how in the first photo, there is little to no sky visible?  and then in the following photos, the sky is a major part of the photo.  This made my camera meter change, signaling I needed to change settings, but I did not.  I feel the photos are generally exposed well, all the same and it took little to no time in lightroom to process these images!  Usually I have to adjust each photo to have similar exposure!  I was so excited!

The same thing with this next set.  I metered off the green grass, test shot, adjusted and left my settings alone!

 

The lighting in each photo is the same, but the meter was not telling me this.  And yes, I use spot metering, even coming off his skin, the meter would still change depending on my view of the sky.  I also used my small silver reflector to push some light under his chin.

I hope you enjoyed this!  Let me know if you have any questions!