MomShots

When I first started out in the World of Photography, nearly two and a half years ago, I was really confused on what some of the key terms meant. Words like Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO were all so confusing and didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I didn’t find definitions of those words in my camera’s manual yet the book kept using them over and over again. It took some time and patience on my part to seek out and and understand what those terms meant and what their practical applications were.

If you are in the same boat and are seeking to figure out what those terms mean, you can find some answers on Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman’s photography site. She has reposted a four part series explaining, in great detail with examples of what Aperture and Shutter Speed mean.

You can find Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four at each of these links.

I’m kind of taking the lazy mom’s way out here by pointing you to someone else’s hard work instead of taking the time to explain in my own words. However, if you still have questions or want my take on it, leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll be glad to talk about it. You can always email me at MomShots@yahoo.com.

As a side note, I’m really excited by all the responses I’ve gotten about this new 52 week project. Let’s work together to keep each other motivated! I’ll be posting my weeks here to help remind and motivate you.

Obligatory MomShot… This photo has absolutely nothing to do with this post. I just think it’s kind of cute because Ulysses is being such a tough guy and is all decked out in Nerf gear. I can’t very well have a MomShots post without including a MomShot, can I?

After yesterday’s great post by Rachael and Shanda, I realized that I wanted to get in on the action of the 52 week project too. I have been noticing that I have been taking fewer photos than I used to. I have lots of excuses, like being tired, sick, trapped in the house by cold weather, etc. It’s all just excuses. I am the master of excuses. I will transcend those excuses!

Another reason I am excited about this is because I have such a hard time putting together compilations of photographs of my kids. Again, I have good intentions but poor follow through. You might think that since I take so many pictures of them that I would have photo albums all over the place. I have none. That’s right; none. That HAS to change.

I tried the yearbook challenge last year and got a month into it and then I didn’t keep up my motivation. I just can’t let that happen anymore!

I decided to participate in this project so at the end of the year I can easily print out the 52 pages and have a great compilation of the past year. This will also force me to weekly work on my Photoshop skills. Hopefully that will also help me keep my goal of getting better at Photoshop.

I have decided that all my pages will be 8.5″x11″ at 300 dpi so printing and compiling should be a breeze. I am going to do it scrapbook style - or at least my version of what scrapbook style is. Sometimes I will add embellishments sometimes I won’t. Who knows? I’m spontaneous like that…

Here is my week 1 page.

Anyone else up for joining? Or have you already started? I’d love to see and/or share some of your 52 week project pages. Email me at MomShots@yahoo.com.

I am excited to see my Photoshop and photography skills by the end of 2010. I can’t help but get better if I keep up with this project and forcing myself to take pictures and compile them. It’s going to be fun!!!

Note from Jessica: I am super excited and inspired by this post. Rachael Grotegut and Shanda Atwood are both talented photographers and busy moms who live in my area (the Utah Valley). They are great ladies who never fail to make me laugh. I feel lucky to know them.

Text by Rachael Grotegut:

Last summer my friend Shanda and I each opened up a photography business. While its been fun to photograph other families and build our portfolios. We noticed that we both stopped photographing our children as frequently as we used. In fact besides a few shots for my oldest sons birthday, and Christmas card pictures. There is not much to show for the past seven months. I look back on the date labeled folders from other years and they are filled with memories. In 2009 I completely fell flat!

A few weeks ago Shanda brought up the idea of doing a 52 week project and I just had to jump aboard. Fifty-two weeks, one memory every week, captured on film…er…I mean digital media :). The idea is to capture their every day, the big moments, the small, and everything in between. Then compile the memory or memories you photographed and share them on our blogs, Facebook, etc.

I think this is a great challenge for all of us. Pull your camera out and get creative. Even if it might seem mundane at the moment, years from now you will look back and cherish these memories.

Encourage yourself to take more pictures.

Photo by Shanda Atwood.
Caption: Week one. My mother in law got each of my girls a porcelain doll for Christmas. Kayleigh named this one Kristy, because it’s Kristy’s doll haha. She named hers Kayleigh I did this shoot thinking it was her doll, I didn’t find out it wasn’t hers till the next day, oh well!!!

Note from Jessica: Today I am very excited to announce that our guest DadShots post is by Brett Birdsong, of Birdsong Photography. Brett is an extremely talented photographer from Pensacola, Florida but travels all over the US shooting amazing photos. If you want some inspiration, spend a few minutes looking through Brett’s galleries on his site!
I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did!

I have two little monkeys.

Jacob, who is 5, and Kylie, who is 4.

They are bundles of personality, independence, and insanity. Basically, small versions of me. This round of photos came about during a summer’s day about a year or so ago, in an honest attempt to get some “normal” portraits of the kids. I fall into that odd category of taking thousands of photos during a weekend in wedding season, but have virtually jack squat when it comes to photos of my own kids. I’m horrible I know, but I’m working on it.

So the scene before me was a big, fenced backyard, two freshly bathed kids under the age of 5 in clean clothes. Daddy, the professional photographer, with his fancy cameras and lenses, and the two perfect children to photograph. I could handle this right? I’ve dealt with crying mothers-of-the-bride, intoxicated wedding guests, and fainting officiants…I think I can handle normal photos of my own kids. Right?

In the time it took me to look down, adjust my camera settings, and fire off a few test shots of Jake, Kylie had found dirt, which had made it’s way on to her shirt and face. Jake found this worthy of a belly laugh, which encouraged Kylie, and within 5 minutes of walking outside with calm, clean kids, I had Goofballs 1 and 2 belly laughing at each other while I sat there watching, capturing the scene unfolding before me.

Lesson #1 learned - When I photograph kids, I now have no preconceived notions or ideas of what I’m walking away from that particular session with. There are no backdrops, no lights, no ” sit here and let’s give Sears some competition” photo sessions at all. To me, photographing kids, especially my own, is completely about working with the moment. Sit back, relax, let them be kids. You’ll end up with some really fun shots.

During the the course of the next 15 minutes or so, betwixt belly laughs and smudging dirt on each other, I had each of the kids stand in front of me and make a silly face. Anything silly, I said. I’d make a face at them, they’d make a face back. And out of the silly faces that were made, this collage of photos was born. Now granted, I didn’t get exactly what I had intended to that day. But what I did get was a few photographs of a brief moment in time where my two kids and I sat in the sunshine on a warm summer’s day and made silly faces at each other, and laughed together.

It simply brings back a really great memory of spending time with my kids. And I honestly couldn’t ask more than that from a photograph.

One of my goals for 2010 is to learn Photoshop better. I am confident in my familiarity with the basics of the program but I want to be able to rock the house with it by the time the year is over. I haven’t made much progress yet. It’s still January…

So I Heart Faces’ theme this week is Texture. I think that could mean many things. I have been wanting to play with some texture overlays in Photoshop, so I tried a few out on this photo. I ended up going with this one called PaperBox 2 by ShadowHouse creations. I like it but I’m not sure I like it on this photo. The photo is already pretty textured with the grass and tree leaves all around Uly. Oh well. I can’t spend any more time on it right now. My kids are hungry and I need to go make some kind of dinner.

This will have to do.

One piece of advice I heard last year at PhotoCamp was to show less photos to people and be more discerning about the photos that you do share. It’s kind of an “I only take good photos” attitude. I don’t only take good photos. I take some pretty bad ones. I take some good ones too, but I show all kinds photos; good and bad. I don’t think this is one of my better ones. I don’t really follow that advice.

So I’m pregnant with my 4th child, as you know. With this pregnancy and my love of all things photography, I have been really attentive to pregnant and newborn photography. I have no maternity photos of me with my other three children except for lame snapshots that my husband took in our backyard. I am glad I have those few shots though instead of nothing. I also do not have many good shots of any of my babies when they were newborn.

What I mean is that I have tons of shots of my babies but not many artistic, “wall worthy” shots. I didn’t get into photography until after my 3rd child was born. A bit late in the game, but better late than never, I guess. I am determined not to have that “problem” with this baby.

So while I help this 4th baby grow I have been thinking a lot about ways I can take some good shots of her when she is born. Thinking about posing, props, lighting, etc…

I have also been thinking about possibly paying one of my photographer friends to do some maternity shots for me. The cheepskate in me screams, “Noooo!!!”. The artist in me says to do it. I have had offers by a few friends to do free sessions for me, but I know how much work they have to do and I don’t know if I am OK with that. I don’t want to take advantage of them.

Anyway, personal dilemma aside, I have been looking through blogs and flickr trying to get some good ideas for photographing both myself and our new baby girl. So when I found the new digital magazine called TAoPaN (The Art of Pregnancy and Newborn) I had to sign up, especially since it is a free publication.

I just received my first issue, TAoPaN’s second issue; I was thrilled. There are so many wonderful tips, ideas and suggestions to help photographers in all aspects of photographing pregnant and newborn subjects. I have read through half of this current issue and am really excited for a quiet time this afternoon to read through the rest.

I have already learned a few tricks like using a bean bag to help pose the baby and putting a heating pad under where the baby will be to make it more comfortable. I think many of the tricks and tips offered can be used by photographers of ALL levels, including the point and shoot wielding parent who wants a few good shots.

If you are interested in signing up for a subscription of this wonderful online publication go here.

It’s been a really long time since I entered the I Heart Faces weekly contest. I thought I could probably find something in my photos that might fit the bill and I chose this one. It’s from my sister’s 5 year wedding anniversary photo shoot that we did last February. It’s about time to get them together for a 6 year anniversary photo shoot; especially since they have a new addition to their family now.

I didn’t really have any current photos that I liked enough to enter. It’s about time I got out the camera and took some pictures!!!

Did you enter? If not, maybe you should? It’s a pretty wide theme that I am sure you have something that fits.

In the course of living with two daughters  I’ve learned a great number of things, not least of which is that taking a good picture with two kids in it is hard.

Taking a picture of one kid, you’ve got two main factors - you, and the kid. (At least I do. My photography style lies solidly in the “aim and hope” school of photography.  I don’t really change settings or anything, so the camera isn’t really a factor.)  The kid is going to do what they’re going to do, and you’re going to try and capture it.  Using the tips Jess provides, you make sure they’re not in front of a distracting background, you focus on their eyes, get close, and take a bunch of shots.  You run after them if you have to, and make it fun. Take enough shots and you’re likely to get something good. After all, they’re cute, right?

But two kids- two kids is more difficult. Now you have 3 factors. Two sets of eyes to focus on, two temperaments, two sometimes conflicting agendas.

Most of my pictures with both of my girls look something like this:

Not horrible, but not compelling in any way.  Booooooring.

The rest look something like this:

Amusing, but not as representative of both of their lovely selves as I’d like.

Then one day I stumbled into taking this photo, and something clicked.

Getting these girls on two different planes made all the difference. It adds visual interest and depth, and allows the eye to move around the picture. Plus, there’s a practical side: they’re both looking at the camera, but they’re not right next to each other, so they’re not distracting each other.

After taking that picture I decided to try experimenting with this- looking for opportunities to place myself in the right location as the girls did their thing.

I love the depth of the planes in this one, and the fact that while only Audrey is looking at the camera, it also perfectly captures a facet of Zoe’s personality.

The planes in this shot are much closer, but the vertical difference shakes things up a bit.

The natural height difference in the girls means that most of the time Audrey ends up in the front of the picture, which is something I’m trying to work with.  But I love the candid feel of these shots; they capture the personality of each girl and highlight their similarities and differences. SO much better than that picture at the top of the post!

How do you get good shots of multiple kids? Please share!

There are so many ways to utilize your photography skills to beautify and enrich your home. This project is one I just decided I must do this year. I won’t be going to Paris anytime soon (that I know of) but I can do this exact same project in my own neck of the woods when I am out and about.

The site that originally did this project can be found here, in case you were wondering. They’ve got some cute and inspirational photography on their blog and you can purchase one of their calendars if you’d like to go that route instead.

It looks fun, huh?

I’m writing this here to officially commit myself to it. That’s how it works, right? I make my intentions public and then I have to follow through?

I sure hope so!

Do you have any photo projects that you are working on or that are rumbling around in your brain? What has caught your fancy lately?

We have a guest post today from Lori Brooks. She is a lady I met on Twitter and has been kind enough to offer to share a few of her photos. I think pets and children have a lot of the same challenges for photographers. They are both so wiggly and have a mind of their own and rarely listen and do exactly what you tell them to do.

Take it away, Lori!

Thank you so much to MomShots for allowing me to do a guest post for her, I am honored to be included in her wonderful blog. I am a petsitter and with each new client I take their photo and then display it on my facebook page, this photo welcomes them to my business family. Here are a few of my favorite animals ..

Cooper, there is not a person or animal this dog does not like, he makes friends with cats, dogs, people, anyone. Even if the dog is barking at him all aggresive, he just wags his tail and smiles “lets be friends”.

Madison, she is a rascal full of spunk and personality. it is true that dogs do reflect their owners cause she is just like her owner my friend crystal. She loves to cuddle yet she puts up a fuss when its time to go to her room, makes me smile every time.

Shadow, a fireball of energy and a lover. this dog can go from 0 to 60 when walking at a moments notice. She also loves affection and attention. But who wouldn’t living in a household of 6 people.

Thanks for sharing your shots, Lori!

If anyone else has any shots or thoughts they would like to share on MomShots, send me an email.