MomShots

That kind of sounds like a Dick and Jane title.  See Jane focus.  See Jane snap a MomShot of their children.

Anyway what I wanted to share with you was a couple of photos I took the other day.  I took the boys out for a walk and we found a fun hill to climb and play on.  I had a lot of fun playing with my camera while they enjoyed the snow.

This first shot is one I find interesting.  I love that Uly and Gar are in the background and are in focus.  Mag is in the foreground and is out of focus.  I like that my eye is drawn to Mag because he is in bright colors and in the foreground.  Then the older boys are more subtle in their dark colors but yet they are in focus.  So my eye stays with them trying to figure out what they are doing.  Personally, I think it’s a pretty cool shot.  

I used my 50mm lens with a wide aperture of f/2.0 to achieve this effect.  The wide aperture is the reason I was able to get the out of focus section in the photo.  

When you have a narrow aperture it kind of works like squinting your eyes to get things to appear more clearly.  So the opposite is what occurs when you have a wide aperture (Remember low number = wide aperture).  When you use a wide aperture you can focus on areas of your photo and have the rest be out of focus.  It’s a fun benefit of using a lens with a wide aperture.

This photo is fun too.  I caught Uly jumping off the top of the hill into the snow.  I love that if you look closely you can see the snow coming off of his boots and his is clearly caught in mid jump.  

This action was caught by using a very fast shutter.  My shutter was at 1/500 second.  Fast enough to catch snow falling off his boots and freeze his hands and body in mid air.  My aperture was quite a bit more narrow than the above photo at f/7.1 so you can see that there isn’t any blurred areas.

I think the composition is kind of fun.  It would probably be a bit better without the tree or the stuff in the bottom left hand corner but it’s not a snowboard magazine cover or anything like that.  I could crop it to just include that small section with Uly jumping but I personally like the top of the hill in the shot.  It’s a great shot showing Uly having a blast in the snow.

So all my boys had a blast in the snow and I had a blast playing with my camera settings.  It was a fun time followed up by delicious hot chocolate!

Sounds like Martha Stewart, huh?  :)  I do like Martha.  She has a lot of great information.

Enough about Martha.  This is not a Martha post…

This is a post about cropping your photos to enhance or create a focal point.

I know most people know what a focal point is, but in case you are not sure, my definition of it is the area where your eye is directed to look.

As a photographer we are like the director of a movie.  In a sense we are like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee or Nora Ephron in our own right.  We get to decide where we want the viewer’s eye to go.  

There can be multiple focal points as well.  You can say look here and now move your eye over here. 

Here’s a little assignment for you:

Part A:  Open up a few of your favorite photos and figure out how your eye moves in each one.  Can you pin point a specific focal point?  Are there a few that direct your eye in a sequence? 

 On this photo my eye moves from Gar’s face to their hands and out with the ball.  In kind of a story telling fashion.

I believe that Magnus is the focal point in this photo.  My eye is drawn through the trail of snow directly to his little body and that’s where I stop.  I can take my eye off this trail and look around and the other elements in the photo, but I always go back to Magnus.

Part B:  Open up a few of your not so favorite photos and see if you can find a focal point.

This one has no clearly defined focal point. Is it the point of the shadow? Is it the two boys? Is it the horizon? 

Where is the focal point.  Where is my eye directed?  Is it Ulysses sitting in the snow? It it my sister standing close to where the curb is pointing? Is it the power box in the background?

I think this is one of the major things that makes a snapshot.  I think that in most snapshots you don’t have a clear visual path.  When I look at a photo like this, my eye is darting all over the image trying to decide where to land.  What is the most important thing that I want to stop and hang out on for a while?  That’s what my eye is thinking (or would be if it could think).

Onto Cropping:

My Sister in Law, Thorey took this beautiful picture of her husband holding their new baby.  I love her sweet little face peeking out.  I also really like the light that is coming from above and shining on his hair and her face.

I love this photo but I find the walls and Brian’s shirt a little bit distracting.  I know the focal point is Charlotte’s sweet little face but my eyes get a tiny bit distracted.  This is by no means a bad photo, it just has a little bit of extra stuff in it that could easily be trimmed out.

So I asked Thorey for a copy of it and then I cropped it a little bit.  Ok, I cropped it a lot a bit.  I really wanted Charlotte and Brian’s heads to fill the whole frame.  I tried to balance the black or negative space between Charlotte’s ear and the edge of the frame with the negative space between Brian’s shoulder and the edge of the frame - so they were kind of centered.  

I also added a very, very slight black vignette around the edges.  I think it tones down Brian’s shirt a tiny bit and puts the focus on Charlie and Brian.

So… the moral of the story is, sometimes a photo that has a vague or confusing focal point or has distracting elements can be enhanced by cropping it to only include the items you want the viewer to see.  As directors we need to think about where we want our viewers’ eyes to be focused.

It is OK to not have the focal point right in the center of the photo.  It is OK to have multiple focal points, in a story telling fashion.  It’s OK to do pretty much whatever you want.  

You are the director, after all!

Cut!

That’s a wrap!

My friend, Kate over at Chronicles of a Country Girl told me about this fantastic mosaic maker by Big Huge Labs.  It is super easy to use and the results are pretty fun.  

This is what you do… Go here.   Now upload your photos to Flickr.  Then copy and paste the URL of each photo into the mosaic maker.  You can choose different formats, backgrounds and borders.  Then you hit the big “Create” button at the bottom of the page.

Then voila! your mosaic is made.  You can download it by hitting the save button or you can try again until you get a result that you are happy with.

Now, yes, yes, yes; you can do all this with Photoshop.  It’s really fast with the mosaic maker but you don’t have as much control if you did it yourself in your editing software.  It is just a fun thing to do that may produce some great results.

Have you made any mosaics?  Post them up on the MomShots Flickr group.

That’s a bad pun isn’t it?  I am not sure why all puns seem to be called “bad”.  Is there ever a good pun?  Personally, I think they are all good.  Maybe that’s just my simpleness shining through…

Anyhoo, Happy New Year!!!  

I just received a newsletter from a site I love (Photojojo.com) and they discuss 2009 New Year resolutions for photographers.  They have some really good ideas.  I have decided to take each of them to heart.

Check it out and let me know what your 2009 photo resolutions are. 

Most of their ideas are wonderful.  I think I am going to just copy and paste their ideas into my Uber Resolution List.  And basically copy and paste it here for you.  Here are the things they talk about:

• Get Organized - Weed out the old, out of focus photos.  Organize all your digital files.  Back up your work.
• Show Off Your Photos - Put photos up (they have some good tips).  Make a book.  Enter a contest (talk about major personal challenge here!!!).  Share your pictures online.
• Try Something New - Use a new new technique.  Switch from digital to film or visa versa for a while (I think I’m going to stick with digital for now).  Borrow some new gear.  Shoot from a new perspective.
• Do Some Good - Donate your old gear.  Volunteer your talents.  Teach somebody what you know.
• Challenge Yourself - Create assignments for yourself.  Do something difficult.  Brush up on photographic history.
• Start a Project - Start a year long project.  Pick a new project for each month.  Start a new tradition.  Make a time capsule.
• Take Your Camera Everywhere

Isn’t that a great list?  Some of their specific suggestions may not fit into your life but I think for the most part they are really good.  I am going to take to heart each of the general goals and then make my own smaller goals using theirs as guides.  

• Get Organized - I definitely need to get organized and weed out all my “bad” pictures and also back up my work.  
• Show Off Your Photos - I am going to show off my work more too.  I have been thinking about ways to do that at home quite a bit lately.  
• Try Something New - There are so many things that I want to try that this goal should be simple.  I got a tripod for Christmas so I think I will initially try that out as my “something new”.
• Do Some Good - I am not sure how I will do this but I think if I keep it on my list, I will be able to find a way to do so.
• Challenge Yourself - I am going to participate in Digital Photography School’s assignments more frequently - once a month is my goal.  I would also like to start a challenge section on MomShots.  I know I could use that, maybe you would enjoy that too.
• Start a Project - I think this ties into other aspects of my goals such as showing off my work or even challenging myself depending on where I go with those.  I think one of my projects will be more like decorate my house with photographs or something along those lines.
• Take Your Camera Everywhere - I have really been trying to do this much more lately.  I will keep it up.  A sub-goal of this would be to get myself a better camera bag so that I can take my camera everywhere and not risk damage.

Here’s a nice end of season wild sunflower with the sun shining through the petals for you.  What does this have to do with New Year Resolutions?  I don’t know.  Use your imagination.  :)