MomShots

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.

UPDATE Photo Camp Utah 2010 has sold out. If you still want to go you can sign up for the waiting list. Apparently they sold out in only six hours. Pretty crazy, huh?!? I hope you were able to get your tickets if you wanted them.

Registration is now open and going fast. If you want to go, I strongly suggest signing up this morning. You can go directly to the registration page by clicking here. There has been so much response that the Photo Camp site has crashed. They’ve been working on fixing it but I haven’t been able to get to it yet today.

To go directly to the registration page click here.

I am so excited!!!

I hope to see you there!

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with this post. It really relates to the previous post about White Balance since I took it in natural light with no flash, with my White Balance set to Shade. I can’t have a MomShots post with out any MomShots, can I? Besides, I love how clear and sharp his eyes look. This image is straight out of the camera. No messing with at all.

ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f7.1, Focal Length: 40mm

I was playing with my kids on my bed and taking some random shots this morning. They were making faces and showing me their newest Lego spaceship creations. While I was quickly snapping away, I had my White Balance on Auto.

Maybe I should back up a little bit. Do you know what White Balance is? A simple way of explaining might be to say that White Balance is the basis for how your camera judges the colors that it “sees”. If the color white has a blue tint, then all the other colors it sees is going to be biased towards blue. Same goes for red. If your camera sees white and thinks it has a red or pink tint then all the other colors will lean towards the red side of the color wheel.

You may have noticed taking photos inside and think that they look too orange or even too blue. I always get photos that are heavy on the oranges when I take photos in my living room and kitchen. This photo below is a prime example of what I am talking about, my niece is sitting in an orange basket, but what we are concerned with is the overall warmth of the photo. See how her skin tones are very yellow?

EXAMPLE of heavy on the orange.

White Balance on Auto. No Flash. ISO: 1600, Shutter Speed: 1/30, Aperture: f/4.8, Focal Length: 48mm

The point of the White Balance is to tell your camera exactly how you want it to see white. Your camera probably has a a few options that you can choose from. They usually have Auto, Sun, Shade, Incandescent (or Tungsten), Fluorescent, and Flash. Those are the pretty much the basics but some cameras have an additional Custom setting - and there are varying degrees of how custom you can get that depend on your camera.

I generally keep my White Balance on Auto because I can pick up my camera and snap some shots quickly (good for kids) and then if I find that my Auto setting isn’t meeting my needs I adjust to the kind of light that is present.

Back to my original inspiration for this post. I was snapping a few shots of my kids while we were wresting and playing on my bed. The first few shots were kind of grey-blue looking.

EXAMPLE of White Balance on Auto. No Flash.

ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/4.5, Focal Length: 35mm

I turned on the flash because it was just a bit too dark. This is my result. You can see the difference, I’m sure. Much warmer looking. His skin has that nice creamy, pink appearance that is much more accurate to how he really looks. Not all sallow and grey looking.

EXAMPLE of White Balance on Auto using on camera Flash.

ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/6.3, Focal Length: 105mm

Then I decided that I didn’t want to take shots with the flash because I wasn’t liking the dark shadows that show up. I opened the window blinds a bit to let in some more light. My problem was that my camera was still on Auto. Auto just wasn’t making the correct reading. It was still too grey looking.

EXAMPLE of White Balance on Auto with a little more sunlight coming in.

No Flash. ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 92mm

So my next step was to adjust my White Balance. Since I decided to adjust the White Balance I had to determine what kind of light was available to my camera. I didn’t have the ceiling light on in my room and so the light was coming in through the window, but even though it is sunshine I decided to put my White Balance on the Shade setting because we were not in full sunlight.

EXAMPLE of White Balance on Shade.

No Flash. ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 92mm

See how much better and more realistic the colors are in this photo? It has nice pink tones, soft shadows and generally just looks better.

So as not to play favorites between my boys, I am adding one more photo example of the White Balance set on Shade with my youngest son. You can see how the colors on this photo are far superior to the first two photos at the top of the page.

EXAMPLE of White Balance on Shade.

No Flash. ISO: 800, Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 52mm

Next time your photos are showing up with a goofy tint, try thinking about the type of light that is available and adjust the setting on your White Balance. You can also play with it to create an effect to further your artistic expression. For example, a photo with a blue tint might give the impression of cold.

I have a photo that I took at the end of summer 2008. It was a very chilly day and my son was outside barefoot playing in the yard. I took this photo and didn’t adjust my White Balance. My camera was seeing the light as having a slight blue tint. I actually really like that tint because it shows me how cold it really was. On first impression, one might look at this shot and say, “Oh, too bad you didn’t adjust the White Balance.” But I like it that way, it’s part of my artistic expression on this particular shot.

EXAMPLE of White Balance setting to create a mood.

No Flash. Shutter Speed: 1/200, Aperture: f/1.8, Focal Length: 50mm

In the future we should discuss White Balance even further. A lot of cameras will let you tell your camera what white is. You can set a Custom White Balance and tell it exactly who the boss is. But that’s for another day. Have some fun playing with your White Balance settings and see what you think.

I have mentioned DPS on here before, but it’s been a long time. I love that site. DPS stands for Digital Photography School and it is a forum for all kinds of things photography related. They often have challenges and contests that make me think about how I can stretch my photography brain and try new things.

I follow DPS on Twitter (@digitalps). If you don’t, you might like to.

Today on Twitter I saw a post about a challenge they issued called Recreate a Famous Portrait. I think this sounds like so much fun! A chance to look through portraits and art and a chance to try imitating the lighting and composition of something that obviously has worked in the past. A chance to learn from the greats, if you will.

I am going to try to take this challenge over the weekend. I don’t have any idea what portrait I will attempt to recreate but I am going to figure that out.

Maybe you’d like to join DPS and their challenge?

If you see me on DPS, my name in Winyari. Say hi!

Are you following MomShots on Facebook? If you aren’t, you should. It’s super easy. Plus it makes me feel good. Just click on the blue button to the right —-> that says “Follow this Blog”.

Done.

Super Easy.

Do it now.

Please.