MomShots

I just wanted to leave you a quick note and tell you that I’m in the middle of a moving/painting/cleaning/going-to-California-for-Thanksgiving whirlwind.  I will post the latest Momshots Tip of the Week probably on Wednesday from my in-law’s house but you probably won’t hear from me again until then.   We have Internet at our new house but not at our old house now, but we are still living at our old house.  That is a bit of an inconvenience because I rely heavily on that great invention.   But it is all part of this moving adventure.  And that is an adventure that I very much welcome!!!

Later, my friends.

I received an email from my cousin this afternoon.  Ok, to get technical, she’s actually my cousin-in-law; she’s my husband’s cousin.  But whatever, that isn’t important to this great story.

Anyway, she is really creative and artistic.  She’s one of those people that just comes up with amazing stuff.  They just pop out of her like some really great artistic poppy thing (insert great metaphor here, my mind is blank).  She had this brilliant idea that would be fantastic for so many things, including Holiday cards. 

I am going to just copy part of her email here for you and you can judge the brilliance.  I’m sure you’ll agree. 

I decided to take a series of them (her dogs) racing around the backyard and then put them all on one pic. I crouched in one corner, holding as still as I possibly could, (a tripod would help this with more planning) and snapped every couple seconds for about a minute. Then I snatched bits of them from each photo and dragged them onto one in photoshop. It may seem like a collage, but its all totally realistic– more like a bunch of pictures in one! 

I did this with my pups because I don’t HAVE any kids, but it occurred to me that it would be even more fun with your kids because you can yell a bit of direction their way… they could be making a Gar sandwich in a pile on one end of the yard, holding hands red-rover style running away from the frame on the other end, lying on their stomachs with their hands propping their chins up in the foreground… or just racing around like the hooligans they are like mine did. The photoshop part is seriously simple because if the camera is being held still, copying from one and dropping it into the other should match the pieces up perfectly. I did a bit of overlapping which took a light eraser brush only. 

Anyway, I thought that it might capture the sentiment (which I have at times), that I really have 12 dogs, not 2. I think you probably know what I mean.

Here is the adorable picture she sent me:  

 

So that is Kelty’s fantastic idea.  I L-O-V-E it.  It’s wonderful.  I am totally going to attempt this one of these days.  I think it would be so much fun.  In further correspondence she mentions a few ideas that you might enjoy:

You could even do little costume changes in between shots! Or simpler, put a ton of layers on the boys and then have them peel one of two off each shot! End up in their undies! Ha!

Doesn’t this sound fun?  I am so going to do this.  There are so many possibilities and you would end up with such a fun photo.  You could use this idea for a really creative holiday card.  You could use it for so many things.  Go crazy!!!

I was driving around with my boys today running errands when I drove past the teal blue warehouse.  I love that color and I still hadn’t actually stopped and shot my own photos there.  So I screeched to a halt and grabbed Gar to stand in front and pose for a few Momshots.  

I’m obsessed.

My kids are used to it.

I took a few and I realized that I seem to be in the mindset of feet as a perspective today.  Here’s my favorite from our little impromptu shoot.  I enhanced the colors a little bit in photoshop but not a lot.  That warehouse is really vivid.

 

Have you thought anymore about perspective?  You don’t have to shoot feet if you don’t want to.  But it is fun to mix it up and shoot from a different point of view than you usually do.

Beyond Megapixels is a great site.  Have you seen it?  I have it in my RSS feed and love to read all their great posts.  Today they have a great post that covers the basics of printing your photos.  I enjoyed it, I hope you will too.

This photo has nothing to do with anything…  I just took it in my backyard.  This is Ulysses tight rope walking on the garden hose.  I kind of like the perspective.  My kids don’t know that it really is too cold to go barefoot.  I don’t have enough sense to put shoes on my own feet so I can’t very well tell them to…  At least it isn’t snowing yet.

Oh wait!  I just thought of a Momshots tip.  Woo-hooo!!!  

Momshots tip of the day:  Try out a new perspective.  

You don’t always have to photograph happy smiling perfect little faces to have a memorable photograph.  Try something new and see how you like it.  Let us know what you tried.  We’d all love to hear about it.

I have been kind of distracted lately.  I will probably continue to be so for another week or so.  We are in the process of packing up our house to move.  I’m not exactly sure when we are moving; it might be this week, it might be in two weeks.  Kind of strange, don’t you think?  That’s how we roll though.  Spontaneous to the last breath.

We are only moving about 12 miles north of here but it is a move non the less.  Full blown, packing and cleaning and all the hoopla that goes into that.  

I’m really excited to move.  I’m really excited to not share a wall.  I’m really excited to have big windows that let in a lot of natural light.  I’m really excited to live in an octagonal shaped house with an incredible view of Utah Valley.  I’m excited to decorate our new house for Christmas.  I’m pretty much just excited in general.

Excited and distracted.  I keep saying I’ll do things and then don’t follow through.  I was planning on putting together a post about ISO, putting up a podcast of an interview I did earlier this year and putting up a post comparing point and shoot cameras on the market.  I have all these ideas and much, much more swimming around in various states of undress on my computer and in my head.  But I’m distracted…

So I guess this is some type of an apology to you.  I would love to have fresh content and fresh tips for your holiday photos.  I’ve got some thoughts about that but haven’t had a two brain cells to rub together to write up a new post. 

Anyone want to be a guest writer and share your tips for holiday photos?  Or your thoughts on anything photography related?  This is a serious request…

But this is not a serious photo.  I am sharing it with you because I think it is the funniest face I have seen in forever.  Every single time I look at it, I just start laughing out loud.

The story behind it is that I ran to the store and left my cell phone at home.  My husband found it and started taking pictures of Ulysses.  He took pictures of him jumping, smiling really, really big and this one; a picture of Uly trying to open his eyes really wide and smile.  Just thinking about it is making me chuckle…

Here’s the big smile:

Are you ready? The funny one is next…

I’m still laughing…

Oh, by the way… thanks for your suggestions of sites to look at for inspiration and your ideas of maternity poses.  That was good stuff!  I’m excited to try some of them.

Until I can get my brain to put two consecutive thoughts together in a row…  Keep shooting!

Hmmm….  I need a Momshots tagline.  Any suggestions?

Oh, seriously, anyone want to be a guest poster?  I know so many of you have a ton of knowledge that could benefit us all.  Beuhler?  Beuhler?

Last night I was so inspired I couldn’t sleep. I laid in bed trying to will myself to sleep while my uncooperative brain kept running around like an over active 4 year old.

Earlier that evening I spent some time cruising the Internet. I was looking at galleries and portfolios of professional photographers. I was specifically looking at baby and maternity shots with some older children thrown in just for good measure.

You see, we are going to visit our family in Southern California for Thanksgiving and we have recently had a new member addition and another to be born in early 2009. I really want to try my hand at both photographing babies and pregos. I was looking at all these sites to get ideas of shots I could emulate and props I could use. I am hoping that I can produce something that looks halfway professional.

I’m planning on bringing both the D100 and the D40x. I decided on using the D100 with the 50mm lens because then I can use the auto focus feature. My eyes play tricks on me and when I think it is in focus it isn’t. Then I also plan on using the D40x with the kit 18-55mm lens so I can utilize the zooming features. Plus that lens will auto focus with that camera. I was thinking that I had better be using auto focus because I don’t want to have to reshoot the same shot over and over and over and over and over again while I’m trying to find my focus. Anyway… just some thoughts about that.

So the new baby is a girl, which is totally fun for me. I’m the mom of three boys so I don’t get a lot of sugar and spice photos. I get a lot more frogs and puppy dog tails kind of photos. That’s kind of where my mind is most often so it is really fun to think outside of my self-imposed box. So I’ve got a piece of pink textured faux fur, a hunk of black fleece and a cream colored sheep skin in my mental prop arsenal so far. I’ve also got a basket. So those are a few of the things I’m thinking about bringing with me… I am sure her mom (on the left) will want some pictures taken with this tutu wearing sock monkey (made by her sister on the right) as well…

Suggestions for props or sites to be inspired from are MOST welcome!

Well, back to our regularly scheduled Tip of the Week. We’ve got a great Tip for you today and I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Tye really makes a good point, but I won’t spoil it for you. Read it for yourself and give it some thought.

I hope you have a great day. I’m having a lot of thoughts running through my head that I want to share with you but I think I’d better save those for another day. I’ll leave you with a Momshot I took of Gar last Friday. We went up to a ranger station and got a tag for a Christmas tree - this is a ticket that lets you go out into the National Forest and cut down your own tree. We went for a walk in the snow and I took a few shots of the kiddos.

I woke up Saturday morning and decided I couldn’t live another day with out the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens.  It just would not be possible.  My very existence depended on it.  I had to have it right now. 

Me, dramatic?  Never.

So I (of course cleared it with my husband first) jumped in the car and headed out to the local camera shop.  I will spare you the all the details but I happily walked out with that shiny new lens.  I even got to drool over play with a Nikon D90 for a few minutes.  

It was a really fun morning!  

So I L-O-V-E this lens.  Seriously.  I am having so much fun with it.  

The kit lens that came with my camera is an 18-55 mm f/3.5.  So I already had the 50mm range available to me.  The reason I wanted this lens is because the aperture is so much larger than f/3.5.  Plus, for reasons I don’t fully understand yet (but will in the future!), I could rarely get it to actually go that large.  It was usually around f/4 or f/5.  

This caused some emotional discomfort for me.  I was getting frustrated with how dark my photos were.  I couldn’t get enough light into the camera.  It was driving me nuts.

Also, with the higher aperture, now I can have a narrower Depth of Field.

Have we talked about Depth of Field?  I don’t think we have.  You know when a photo has something in the foreground that is blurred, the subject is in focus and then the background is blurred?  Here’s an example:

Ok, I know it isn’t the best example.  It’s the only one I could find in my recent photos.  Plus, it was taken with my new lens (so that makes it extra cool).  You can kind of tell that the car in the foreground is blurry, Gar is in focus and the background is blurry.  

Here is another example of a photo with great depth of field or DOF as it is referred to in the biz…  I did not take this photo.  I’m not that awesome.  Yet…

So there are a few different ways to get that shallow DOF, one of them is to use a lens that has a large aperture (remember the smaller the number means the larger the aperture or lens opening).  The smaller the aperture number, the shallower the DOF.  

If you are taking a picture of a group of people - like a family portrait, you will notice that everyone is standing in different planes and so you will want to remember to widen your DOF so that you can get everyone in focus.  So that mean raise the aperture number to a 7 or 8 and see if they are all clear.  You might need to go higher than that in some situations.

I know this doesn’t mean anything to point and shoot users.  It’s really a SLR feature.  I don’t know of any point and shoots that offer that kind of aperture control.  If you know of one, please let me know.  I’d love to learn more.

**Edit - Thanks Luann for reminding me that there are higher end point and shoots that have manual modes in which you can control the aperture and shutter speed.  I know that both Canon and Nikon make some really good ones.  This was totally a slip of my brain as I spent about 5 minutes talking to the guy at the camera shop about the new Nikon ones.  Ding-Dong!!  Now back to your regularly scheduled program...***

So anyway…  I feel like I’m kind of rambling here.  The point of what I want to say is that I am having a blast with this new lens.  It is so much fun to be able to shoot in lower light than I could before (without having to raise my ISO or use my flash as often).  It is so much fun to experiment with a great DOF.  It is also fun to use a lens in manual focus.

What?  Did you just read that correctly?  Yes.  Manual Focus.  I have to focus old school style because my D40x only supports auto focus on lenses that have an internal motor.  One of my least favorite things about this fun little camera, but ya’ deal.  It’s no biggie.  I have heard that this feature is the reason that the D40-D60’s are so small; they don’t have to have that autofocus motor inside.

I read online that an autofocus lens with an internal motor will be coming out in December.  However it is rumored to cost about $430.  This lens that I bought was nowhere near that price.  It works on autofocus on our D100 and when I can one day upgrade to my D90 it will work with that too.

So here’s to new lenses!  It is also really fun to have more options.  When I need a zoom feature, I can use my old lens and when I want that shallow DOF, I can use my new lens.  Honestly, I will probably keep this lens on my camera for a long time.  It’s my new favorite possession.

Here are a few shots of Uly that I took at the park last night.  I shot them all with the 50mm at f1.8 with the ISO at 400.

I’m a little slow.  

Seriously, I can’t believe it is Wednesday already.  Are you sure it isn’t Monday still?

The illustrious winners of our Pay it Forward contest are:

• Kath at Two-Oh-Oh-Eight Project(ion)s
• Mandi at {Mandi Speaks}
• Shelle at Blok Thoughts

Yay and congratulations!  When you receive your package, it will be your turn to Pay it Forward on your blog.  I’m excited to see this continue and move on forward.

I want to show you what I made them (hint* you can find it on the Momshots Flickr photostream) but I’m not going to post a photo of it here until after they have received it.  I don’t want to ruin the surprise (too much).

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and left a comment.  You are all such a talented and fun bunch!

to The Pioneer Woman’s website for a chance to win a Canon Powershot SD880 IS.  She is picking three lucky winners so you could be one!  Wouldn’t that be cool?!?  Yeah, I think so…

Go here. 

Be sure to enter before 8pm PST today.  That’s the cut off.

I’ll be back later today or tomorrow with a real post…  I have been really busy lately and haven’t had a second to sit down and write.  I’ll get something to you soon - including my thoughts on a point and shoot. 

Plus…  I got a new lens!!!  Ok, so maybe that’s the reason I haven’t been able to tether myself to my laptop lately…  The truth is out.

Early this week, my friend Kate ran a Pay it Forward contest.  I was one of the three lucky winners!  I received this beautiful print in the mail yesterday as my prize.  I was so excited to receive it.  Kate is such a talented photographer and now I have my very own print!!!

 

So now it is my turn to pay it forward.  I have been trying to decide what I could pay forward and then I asked myself what I would like.  I would like a new camera strap cover and so that is what I will do.  I will make three lucky winners a new camera strap cover out of the black and white fabric you see below.  I will use the other colors to make an embellishment of some sort - probably a rosette of some kind.

The first three people to comment after this post will win a handmade camera strap cover, by me.  This is only open to people who have blogs because the stipulation is that once you receive your gift, you will need to turn around and pay it forward.

If you don’t happen to have a DSLR, we can talk and I’ll make you something else instead.

Ok, got it?  Ready?  Set.  Go!