MomShots

Momshots got a makeover last night.  There were a few features that the old theme couldn’t offer and this new theme seems to be working pretty well.  I’m still getting used to how it looks and will possibly make some more visual changes in the future, but until then, this is it!  I hope it is a little easier to use.

A few of the changes are:

• The comment button is now at the end of each post.  That way you don’t have to scroll back up to the top to make a comment.  Hopefully this will encourage more comments - I love your feedback!
• A contact form has been added on the Contact page.  I wasn’t able to get these to work in the old theme and now it is working great. Again - I love your feedback so this was important to me to get up.
• Tip of the Week section has been added.  We will begin posting up tips each week.  Check back soon for the first Tip.  We’ve got some good things planned.  You are going to love it!

I would love for you to join our brand new Momshots Flickr group. We can share our photos with each other this way.  I can only see our photography improving. Awesome Momshots here we come!!!

http://www.flickr.com/groups/momshots/

We can help each other take photography to the next level. Are you as excited as I am???

Have you heard that term before?

There is a special window of time that is about an hour before sunset where the natural light is so perfect for taking photographs that photographers the world over have coined the term, “The Magic Hour”.  There is also another window of time that is bright and early and first thing in the morning.  Both of these times are ideal for taking awesome Momshots.  

This time is also called “The Golden Hour”.  Can you guess why?  The light is soft, even and warm - sometimes it has almost golden hue to it.

My suggestion for your photographing children adventures or your Momshots experience is to try a little photo shoot with your kids during The Magic Hour.  You can play with the light and deep shadows or you can get some great diffused and even lighting on your subjects.  Play around and see what fun results you can get.

I’ve mentioned it before and I will mention it again. And again. And again. It’s that pivotal to taking good momshots that I won’t let it become a subject that we read about once and then forget. What is it you ask? It is the concept that when we photograph children we need to experiment with bringing the camera down to their eye level. We can try different angles besides directly in front of them, but as a general rule we should avoid taking photos while towering above them.

One of the concepts of taking portraits is to bring the viewer and the subject together in a conversation. A conversation where the two parties are generally on equal terms. When we shoot children looking down on them, it separates them dramatically from the adults. It impresses our adult superiority on them. That’s not really the goal (unless that is your goal…).

These two momshots are taken from different angles. One is taken at Ulysses’s eye level and the other is taken from below. Neither of these impose our adultness onto him, they bring us into his world because we can see as he sees.  I really like the camera angle for these two momshots, I like the lighting as well.  I am also a little bit enamoured of the “noise” in these photos.  I need to work on using the correct ISO setting a little better, but I kind of like the result.  

The Momshot tip of the day is to experiment with the angle from which you are photographing your little cherubs.  Try something new and see how it turns out.  You may be pleasantly surprised!

Lately, I have been messing around in Photoshop, mostly converting some of my momshots to black and white. The reason? because I have taken alot of random momshots that have a loss of color coordination, due to giving up and letting my kid dress herself. The result, to many colors in the photo that are not pleasing to my eye! I noticed when changed to black and white, I just see pattern and different values of the same color (Black & White is color without hue). It seems to eliminate the non-important information and keep the essential. I have also noticed that the momshots that look good in black and white must have good lighting to begin with, because the lighting in black and white, clearly manifests itself.

How do you print out your fabulous momshots?  There are so many options out there; your personal printer, Costco, Walmart, Walgreens, Kodak kiosk, Snapfish, Mpix…  the list goes on and on.

I don’t have a lot of experience printing photos.  I have done it only a handful of times in the past 10 years.  That is a trend I plan on breaking!  Immediately!

In my recent post about decorating with photos, I decided to build a little mural of beach photos from our recent trip.  Well this evening I spent some time and edited the ones I want to use in Photoshop and cropped them all to the size I want.  I’m going with the 5″x7″ prints.  I think those will be a good size.  Big but not too big.

Now to the printing…  I don’t think that my printer will give me the quality that I want so I am going to use a service.  Of all my options, I decided to upload the files to Snapfish.  I have used them once in the very long distant past.  I was pretty happy with my results.  I don’t have any complaints.  So because of familiarity and the fact that I don’t have to leave my home, I decided to use them again.

I’ll for sure let you know what I think of the results once I receive them.

While I was weighing my options, I found an interesting photo printing comparison website.  Check it out and let me know your thoughts.  It doesn’t include everywhere but it does include many places.  In fact, quite a few that I hadn’t heard of before.

My sweet husband turned me onto this cool website today;  www.sodasnap.com.  You can send a virtual postcard to anyone who has an email address.  You just follow their simple directions, attach a photograph(a.k.a. fantastic momshot) and viola! you have a customized postcard.

If you have an iPhone it is a free application so you can send postcards to everyone you know all the time.  Constantly.  Everyone wants tons of virtual postcards filling up their inbox, right?  Especially if the postcards have my momshots on them, right?  Of course!!!

Another cool thing to do with all those awesome momshots you are taking!

My walls are bare.  They are also painted in lovely rental white.  When I came home from my trip to my parent’s house, I was struck by the total bareness of my house.  Not stark in a good “modern minimalist” kind of way, but in a bad “I don’t care about this rental dump” kind of way.  I have decided I need to change that attitude.  It’s boring.  It doesn’t reflect me or my family.  

Baby Steps:

I am thinking of a few photo collage ideas.  

• I would like to put together some images from our recent trip to the beach at my parent’s house and hang them in my boys’ bathroom.
• I would like to get three photos of each boy and make a collage to hang on the wall up the stairs.  Maybe not three, that would be nine frames hanging and that might be too many.

So this brings me to my line of thought:

What do you do with your momshots?  Do you put them in a brag book?  Do you scrap book them?  Do you print them out and thumb tack them to a cork board?  Do you have 100’s of family photos in frames on all available flat surfaces?  What do you like to do?

There is a really great online community called Digital Photography School.  They have a blog that I subscribe to and have read some really good tips and been inspired by other members posts and photos.  Today, I received a note about their weekly challenge.  They choose a topic and then people post their photos that are taken within a given time frame and meet the the challenges requirements.  This week the challenge is a Sunny Day.  You post a photo that fits your idea of what a sunny day is.

I have never participated in their contest before.  I have thought about how I would compose a photo for a few of their topics, but I have never submitted.  That is until today.  

Last week my family and I went up to Washington State for the 4th of July holiday.  On that trip, I was a serious camera nut.  Capital N-U-T!  I took so many photos is was a little ridiculous; but oh so fun!  I decided that I would submit an entry into their Sunny Day challenge because I knew I had a few that would meet the criteria.  My problem was that I had so many Sunny Day photos that I had a really hard time picking.

I ended up submitting this photo.  I chose it because it showed my son, Garland, playing in the sun.  I think it captured his action really well and I liked how the sun looked on the water and on his back.

These are the runner ups of my choice.  They are more like still life’s.  That’s really the reason I chose the one with Gar over these two.  I just liked that it had him in it.
 

Anyway, what I wanted to throw out to you, is to challenge yourself.  Whether it is to break out of your comfort zone and submit a photo to a contest or to plan, in your head, a photo you would like to take and then attempt to take it.  We grow and learn by challenging ourselves.  Give yourself a challenge.  Whether large or small, it matters not.  

This little cutie pie is Thyssen, Katie’s son.  He’s just so dang cute you just want to munch him!  I love this momshot.  Katie did a great job of capturing this fun moment while his face is covered in cupcake frosting.  She used the natural light very well, framed her subject so he fills the frame and got down on his level.  Great momshot, Katie!!!

I have a very artistic and creative sister in law who has two beautiful children.  Her name is Katie.  She recently made a post on her family blog about how she is practicing her momshots and learning how to use her camera.  This is what Katie said:

I have been trying to use some of the features on my camera like shutter speed and zooming and whatnot. I also have been working with filling the frame with my subjects (kids) and lighting, as I just read about on Jessica’s blog. I took Jessica’s momshots advice and started to read the manual for my camera. I had a few realizations: One, that I have no clue how to operate my camera, two, that my camera is pretty rad and it does a lot of stuff. I think that if I learn one new thing a week, I will know how to successfully operate it in about a year.

I love her realization that her camera is actually pretty cool.  I think this is generally the case of most digital camera owners.  These new fangled digital point and shoot cameras have so many more features than the old school point and shoot film cameras.  I think that often we are stuck in a film point and shoot mindset and don’t take the time to really learn all the spiffy things our cameras can do.  

I LOVE, love, love her weekly goal to learn a new feature each week.  Not only will she be practicing her momshot skills but she will be able remember the new features she learns because of all that practice.  I really look forward to watching your progress, Katie!  I know you are on your way to some incredible momshots!

(This picture is of the adorable Luke - a friend, Mandy’s son.  Katie did such a great job of getting down on his level, framing the shot and using the natural lighting available.  Awesome momshot, Katie!)