Learning photography

I know that photography is talent and a skill. I also know that there is more than just clicking a button and that is why I need some help (:

I have a Nikon 3100 (?) and 2 different sized lenses that I got for christmas 2 years ago. Im sad to say that I have barely used it   I want to be able to have that eye for photography and capture my kids' special moments instead of crappy Iphone pics with an Instagram edit haha I just dont know where to start! I know they have classes that I could learn from but i am already a full time student as well as full time employee.

Any tips or resources would be awesome!

Practice, practice, practice.

Take it off auto and learn how to shoot manual (there are plenty of free tutorials scattered around the web that teach you how to use the different modes).

Practice, practice , practice... watch youtube videos.  

Quoting skijerze:" Practice, practice , practice... watch youtube videos.  "

Apparenly 3 "practice"s is the advice to give.   haha

Quoting The Doctor:" Apparenly 3 "practice"s is the advice to give.   haha"

lol  

Google your ass off. haha. It's what I did. And I also had a lot of help from my photography idol.

There's also a thread I made "Official Photography Thread" and lots of advice in there.

No amount of googling and learning will give you an "eye" for it. That comes from within.

But learning how to use your camera, that's good to google! Lol. Get into forums, facebook groups, etc.

Get a book on amazon. I have One all about shooting candid and portraits, even a section about kids and babies(: its called Portrait and Candid Photography by Erin Manning.