MomShots

So I just found out that there is a photography competition at the Utah State Fair, held in early September. I am thinking about trying to find an image to submit. Any suggestions?

If you are in Utah and are interested in participating click here to find out all the rules, regs and to find an application form you can download.

If you are not in Utah, I urge you to find out about your state or county fair and enter one of your shots.

I don’t think entering the competition is about winning but about stretching yourself and putting yourself in situations that help you to grow and become a better photographer and person. Who knows, you may really be inspired by the other entries and learn something new.

You don’t have to have a fancy camera to do this either. It is about your results not the equipment you use.

This shot is not my entry, it just reminds me of fairs. It was taken on an afternoon where my mom, my sister and I were making chili and putting it in quart jars to preserve for future quick dinners. It was my first pressure cooker experience and was a ton of fun.

This week’s theme over at iheartfaces is Hats. I have this MomShot of Magnus wearing the Indiana Jones hat. I really like the sun lens flare here. I have been playing with sun flares a lot lately.

I haven’t really discussed lens flare so some of you might be wondering what it is. I was going to type up the definition I found on wikipedia but it is long and confusing and I have a sore throat so I’m going to skip that part right now.

You can experiment with lens flare by shooting directly into the sun or off to the side a little bit. It can completely wash out your photo or you can get some really fun bright spots and rainbows on your shot.

This photo is a bit washed out but I still like it. I love it because of the hat. When my son puts on the Indiana Jones hat, he starts to sing the theme song from the movie and he grabs whatever is available and starts swinging it around making whip noises. It is super cute. Super cute!

Here’s my entry for this week’s iheartfaces competition.

This is not my entry but I liked it too. It’s just a cropped version of the above photo but I like it because it focuses on his face.

Here’s a shot my cousin Kristina took of her daughter Bella. This shot is so beautiful it looks like Bella has a sun crown and bracelet. Perfect for a little princess like her!

Princess Bella by Kristina McPherson

Do you have any shots with cool lens flare you would like to share with other MomShots readers? I would love to see them!!! Email them to me or send me a link to where they are online. MomShotsatYahoodotcom.

Did you notice how infrequently I posted last week. It’s funny how some weeks are like that. Then there are other weeks, or even days for that matter, where I will post a whole bunch. That’s probably because I’m not one of those bloggers who have a schedule. I just post as the whim strikes. That’s pretty much of how I operate in most aspects of my life. I’m an “As the Wind Blows” kind of girl.

Anyhoo… So Sunday was my wedding anniversary. We celebrated on Saturday and Sunday. It was great!

We have been married for 12 years now and for some reason, I was really excited for this milestone. Much more than I was for 10 or recent past anniversaries. I don’t know why, I just was. Maybe it is because when I was a kid we could only have birthday parties on certain years and 12 was one of those years so now as an adult the number has a bit more significance than others. That’s probably it.

I actually have a photographic point to telling you this. The tie-in here is that for an anniversary present, Ben got me a copy of Aperture 2. That is the Apple pro-level photo editing and managing software. I have read many great things about it and I’m excited to try it. I’ll probably be installing it tonight or tomorrow after I have my current to-do list checked off. I’m excited about it and I’ll let you know what I think.

I use iPhoto to manage my photos but I don’t use it to edit them, I use Photoshop CS3. I have been pretty happy with that relationship until I tried to switch over to RAW and then I encountered some minor hiccups. iPhoto would convert my photos into JPGs when I imported them to Photoshop so I wasn’t able to use the Adobe Camera RAW program and that was a bit frustrating. Then I solved my problem by bypassing iPhoto and pulling the files directly off the camera. That works but I don’t like it as much because I like to have my photos all organized in iPhoto so they are in one place and I can easily find them.

Aperture is supposed to fix this problem. I’ll let you know after I install it.

It’s a new week over at iheartfaces. The theme is Natural Light. Since that’s pretty much all I use I thought I would enter. I am going to enter in both the children and adult categories this week. I rarely have adult photos to use but I am going to use one of the shots from my sister’s anniversary photoshoot. I have posted both of these up here previously so sorry for the repetition.

If you are thinking about entering the competition, DO IT!!! It’s super easy and super fun. It is great to look through the other contestants and get inspiration. I love it. The deadline is Tuesday so go get crack-a-lackin’ and one of you natural light shots to enter!!!

My Kid’s category entry:

This is my entry into the Adult’s category:

The final word from me today is about iheartfaces giveaway. They have partnered with Photojojo for this contest. I am pretty sure I have mentioned them in the past. I love Photojojo. They always have the best newsletters full of either awesome products or projects to make that have a crafty photographer in mind. I always look forward to new newsletters from them. They never disappoint!

So I just read this awesome post on a blog I follow and I wanted to lead you over in that direction. The blog is called Digital Photography for Moms and she often has great tips. This morning her post was about shooting in RAW vs. shooting in JPG.

If you are not sure what I am talking about let me explain a little bit:
These are file formats. I believe all digital cameras can shoot in JPG. You can usually choose how large of a file you would like it to use - small, medium or large. I believe most DSLRs have the ability to shoot in both JPG and RAW.
When your camera saves your file as a JPG, it compresses it and then runs the file through an algorithm that determines what the final result will be. Basically your camera makes choices for you like how blue or dark the image will be.
When you shoot in RAW, your camera doesn’t compress the file. It saves this giant file and then when you bring it into your computer you can make choices about how you want it to look. If your white balance was off or you have areas that are a bit blown out, you can often save those pictures and correct them to look better very easily.

So from that really simplified explanation, you can see that shooting in RAW gives you more control. There are a lot of benefits from shooting in RAW.

I have been shooting in JPG all this time and I just switched my camera to RAW on Saturday night for the Photocamp photowalk. I was really surprised by how much control I have in the editing process. I could lighten some of my images or change the white balance. It is pretty cool.

So I’m still experimenting with it and I’ll get back to you with more information about it. Don’t feel like you need to switch over this very second but it is a fun change and it opens a new level to my post processing.

On another note, I need to announce the winners of our giveaway from Friday and I need to put together that much anticipated catchlight post. I’ll get on those as soon as I can. Things have been a little crazy in my part of the woods lately. I was so obsessed with my presentation from Photocamp that now it is time to get back to reality! So the point of this little paragraph is that those posts are coming soon. So hold your horses! I’ll get on those items soon.

Obligatory MomShot:
A little triptych I made using images from a morning shoot after I gave Mag chocolate cake for breakfast (yeah, I’m that kind of mom too). I really liked how it turned out. I love the brightness of the colors and the lightness of the background. Even though you can see my brown chairs and cupboard behind him, there is a certain “airiness” or “lightness” about these shots that I really dig.

The shot on the left and the one in the middle was shot at 50mm f/1.8 200 ISO, the shot on the right was shot at 50mm f/3.5 200 ISO. All shot with natural light. I decided I’m going to start giving you my settings. I always like it when other people do that so I want to do the same for you.

I want to make a post about catchlights. I have been thinking about these lately and would like to expand my knowledge and share what I have learned with you.

So here’s the Casting Call part… I bet you are sick of just seeing my kids faces on here. Would you like your child’s sweet mug to be in a post? I would love to open up the floor and see if anyone would be interested in letting me use one or two of your photos in a post.

If you are interested in contributing a photo or two, please contact me via a comment after this post, the MomShots contact page or email me at momshots@yahoo.com. I am specifically looking for any shots of your children that have great catchlights in the eyes. If you aren’t sure what a catchlight is here is a definition: Catchlights are a reflection of the light source in the eyes of your subject.

I’m looking forward to your contribution! Also, I would love to use your photos in future posts. If you have any ideas or thoughts on this I would love to hear from you. Seriously. Email me.

I was inspired by my blogging buddy Tara’s post yesterday. She made these adorable Scrabble pendant necklaces. I love them. I don’t know what it is about them but I have been enamoured with these things since I first saw them a few years ago. I even bought one off of Etsy a while back, which I love. I keep telling myself I am going to get the supplies and make a bunch of them. I think there are so many fun applications beside necklaces for them.

Anyway… Go enter Tara’s giveaway. Then comeback here and check out this project that I made before Christmas. I didn’t post it before Christmas because it was a gift for a few people and I have been holding off on posting because one of those people has not received theirs yet, but I can hold back no longer! It’s time to share with you this cute little photo album. If it looks familiar it is because I mentioned it in a quick little post back in December but I didn’t post any pictures. Here is my result:

I had a bunch of wallet sized photos printed up and filled them with shots of the kids and family and have given them to the grandparents.

Anyway, if you are up for it, it is a super easy and fun craft project to do. I found the business card holders at Target and then had a blast playing with Modge Podge. I would like to cover the world in Modge Podge.

I want to share with you. I have been absent for a few days. I have been in the Mom Trenches, meaning I’ve been dealing with a bunch of sick kids and then I got sick too. But we are on the upswing now. Yay!

How was your Valentine’s Day? Did you get any good photos?

I had a really fun opportunity to do a photo shoot with my sister and her husband. They were celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary and I asked them if I could take some shots of them. It was so different to shoot adults than children - and especially these two who have had lots of time in front of the camera so they did a great job of posing and just looking adorable. Here’s a small sampling of the shots I got.

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Ok, so it’s not pictures of kids and that is really the primary objective of this site but I do want to share something I learned. Because learning photography is the second thing that this site is about.

The biggest lesson is that I need to use my flash to fill in my subject, especially when the background is bright. We went up into the Provo canyon to try to capture some images of them in front of the beautiful mountains. However I was frustrated because they were too dark and the background was so light. I kept thinking that if I had a reflector stuck in the snow the shots would be perfect. Silly me! I didn’t even think to use my flash until about two days later and I was editing some images.

Hello?!? Fill Flash!!!

I think that if I would have used my flash to fill in the foreground light on their faces, the shots in the mountains would have been great.

I am kind of kicking myself about forgetting that. I try so hard to use natural light and avoid using my flash that I completely forgot that it is OK to use in some situations. This would have been one of those situations.

Here’s one of the better lit shots. It sure could have used a bit of fill flash love!

You can bet I will be trying hard not to make that mistake again!

I will now be the crazy lady walking down the street chanting to myself, “It is OK to use my flash. It’s OK to use my flash. It’s OK to use my flash.” So if you see me, be sure to stop me and say hi!

Also speaking of saying hi, don’t forget about Photocamp Utah, on March 14th. If you register before the 1st your price is only $10. It’s such a screaming deal I can hardly believe it. It is for photographers of all levels so don’t be intimidated if you don’t feel like you can call yourself a “photographer”. If you have a camera and want to learn more you should come. It’s going to be great.

I am trying to figure out exactly what I am gong to talk about (suggestions are welcome!!!) but I am super excited. If you go, I really hope you will say hi to me. I’d love to meet you!

I get asked once in a while what point and shoot cameras I recommend.  I love that question and I wish I had an awesome answer for you.  I would love to be in a place where I could review cameras and let you know my thoughts on them but currently no one has sent me any cameras to review.

Hey Nikon! Are you listening?!?

Here’s your chance Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony and any other camera manufacturers.  Send me your cameras and I’ll let my readers know the scoop!  

Since I don’t have a lot of experience with various manufactures I can only tell you this:  I love Nikon.  I have loved their point and shoots in the past and I love their DSLRs now.  They always have excellent lenses and cutting edge technology.  

I know people who have loved their Olympus’, Canons, Kodaks, etc. I don’t have any experience with any of these brands for digital cameras. I had a Polaroid film camera and it was a fine little camera. It did the job.

If I were to buy a digital point and shoot to keep in my purse, I would probably choose the Nikon Coolpix S60.  I like the size, I love Nikkor lenses, they claim to have one of the fastest start-up time and shutter speeds around and an added bonus is that I think Ashton Kutcher is kind of cute.

I’m just kidding about that being a reason to buy it, really I am. I’m so NOT that shallow!!!

The S60 has a 3.5″ touch LCD screen on back. I think that’s pretty cool! It has a cool feature where you can touch the subject (on the screen) to lock focus. This sounds like an awesome feature that gives point and shoot users more variety. It also has some fun things like smile detector, a high ISO of 3200 so you can get low light shots and smile timer. Using the touch screen you can write on and edit your photos in camera. Those are some of the reasons why I would consider buying this camera.

For a little more robust point and shoot camera I like the Coolpix L100. It has a VERY fast shutter speed of continuous shooting in sports mode at 13 frames per second. That’s WAYYYY fast! It also has an amazing zoom range simulating a 28mm to 420mm zoom lens. That is a 15 times zoom. The average point and shoot only has a 4 or 5 times zoom. It has a high ISO of 3200 meaning it can be used in low light situations pretty well. It also has all the normal Nikon preset modes that I love on a point and shoot.

I think if I were to choose a camera between the two I would choose the L100 because I like the awesome zoom capacity and super fast continuos shutter speed aspects of this camera very much. When taking pictures of crazy, wild, wiggly, running all over the place kids I think this feature would get used a lot. I would probably always have my camera in sports mode if I used the L100!

These recommendations are solely based off my research online and my past and present experience with Nikon. I don’t have much experience with other brands so obviously my opinion is tainted by that.

What point and shoot camera do you recommend? What have you used in the past? What aspects do you enjoy about your camera? Why did you buy it? Please share your experiences with us here on MomShots so we can all benefit from your knowledge.

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.

Isn’t this a cute shot?  This is from when we drove out to the snow so the kids could play in the snow.  This is probably B’s first attempt at making a snowball.  Either she is making a snowball or getting ready to eat a huge mouthful of snow.  Both are very probable.

Really this post is not photography related.  It is a story from my life that I think is kind of funny.  I hope you will enjoy it and maybe get to know me a little better.    Read on…

I decided that I wanted to enter Shelle at BlokThoughts’ contest.  It is called Don’t You Hate it When and you tell stories about things that have happened to you and people (that means you) go vote on (for) it.  Previously I hadn’t any ideas of things to write about but then the snow has reminded me of a story that I think fits the Don’t You Hate it When boot.  

Here’s my story:

When Ben and I were engaged, we were living outside of Bellingham, WA.  I grew up in that area but Ben grew up in Southern California; Hesperia, California to be exact.  The High Desert.  Hotter than blazes in the summer and briskly cold in the winter, but not snow country.  I don’t think Ben had ever driven in the snow.  Ever.

So that winter it snowed.  It snowed a lot.  We had about a foot and a half of snow that fateful day. 

Now in some areas of the country when it snows, the roads are cleared with grand efficiency.  The snow is whisked off the road and this ice is swiftly dealt with.  Not so in Whatcom County.  Especially out on Gooseberry Point.  When the roads are covered in snow, they stay covered in snow for a good solid week until the one county operated snow plow can triangulate its way out into the boonies and sluggishly push the snow off the road.  

We get pretty adept at driving in the snow.  I had a bit of confidence in my snow driving abilities.  I loved my then-fiance’ but I didn’t have the same amount of confidence in his snow driving abilities as he had.  

One such snow covered day we found some reason why we had to risk the roads and drive into town.  The reason escapes me now, but I am sure it was a good one.  A very, very good one.

So Ben and I bundled up and excitedly got into his little white Toyota Tercel.  A car that had probably never seen a snowflake in its life since he borrowed it from his parents in SoCal.  We were ready for an adventure and a chance to spend some time together.  

As we slowly backed out of the driveway, I knew we were in for an adventure.  Ben kept saying, “it’s just like driving on sand.  It’s no big deal.”  

I kept screeching, “Be careful!  Watch out!  Go slower!”  

As we got into a slow grove, everything seemed to be going well.  Ben was having fun testing his limits.  I was enjoying the steady flow of adrenaline that was pumping into my bloodstream because my wonderful fiance was having fun testing his limits.  A fishtail here.  A half broodie there.  That sort of thing.  

That is until the road had an incredibly tight hairpin curve down a little hill.  We managed to inch our way down the hill’s crazy curve while somehow managing to avoid going into the ditch.

Now is the time when I should mention the ditches.  These aren’t your little city gutters or even a little foot deep hollowed out indention on the side of the road where a little road run-off might play.  These are 3 to 4 feet deep ravines on each side of the road that help to keep the swollen Nooksak river and Mount Baker’s melting snows from flooding the valley down below.  These could be considered major aquatic thoroughfares in some parts of the world.  These suckers are deep!

So we are now at the bottom of that little crooked hill and the road is relatively straight.  Ben is driving pretty well.  I am screeching at him pretty well.  We were a good team.  

He is still so excited about driving in the snow and he had not tested his limits far enough so he continued to swerve and skid around the snowy, icy road.  This straight stretch of road, with little traffic was too tempting for him as he gunned it and played around in his little white steel toboggan.

We were both laughing at this point and enjoying the winter beauty of the country.  That is until we slowly, ever so gently started sliding off the road and gracefully landed in the ditch; nose first.  

We mightily heaved our doors open and climbed out of the car.  Standing in knee deep snow we surveyed our predicament.  The back wheels of our car were not even touching the snow anymore.  The nose was buried in snow.  We were genuinely stuck.

Then a large, beat up, grey, kid-napper style van pulled up behind us.  He carefully stopped and got out of his vehicle.  Sauntering over to talk to us was a grungy, bundled up man with a beard and sandy colored hair poking out the bottom of his ‘Made in Nepal’ stocking cap.

As he walked up to us he started talking.  Maybe ranting, even.

“My friends all call me Alaska Joe.  I am such a good snow driver that they have all nicknamed me Alaska Joe.  When ever it snows, my phone rings off the hook because everyone wants Alaska Joe to drive them places.  Drive them to the store.  Drive them to town.  Drive them to their mothers.  Alaska Joe gets asked by everyone to drive them all over.  

Alaska Joe is such a good snow driver because he is careful and slow and doesn’t take risks.  I understand the snow and the snow understands me.  I am Alaska Joe! 

Now it looks like you need some help here.  You need someone to pull you out of that ditch there.  It looks like it would be a pretty easy job.  Just tie a rope onto your axel and pull you out.  No problem.  Alaska Joe could do that.

But I won’t.  

I saw you driving back there.  You were swerving all over the place.  You were going too fast.  You were not driving safely.  You were not being a good snow driver like Alaska Joe.

Alaska Joe could pull you out, but I won’t.”

Then Alaska Joe got back into his cruddy old van and slowly, very safely, drove off.  Leaving Ben and I next to our up-ended car with our mouths open and our jaws around our knees.  We didn’t know if we should be mad that he wouldn’t help us when he could have or if we should laugh because he was such a nut.

We chose mockery.  Good old fashioned, immature mockery.  We were strutting around with our chests puffed out saying, “I’m Alaska Joe.  I’m such a good snow driver but I won’t help you.  You’ve got a lesson to learn here.  I’m Alaska Joe.”  We laughed about that guy for a while.  His ranting.  His ability to switch from first person to third person in the middle of a sentence.  His general Alaska Joe-ness.  It was all hilarious.

Luckily for us some real neighborly fellows, in a big truck with a winch rolled by and kindly helped us out of the ditch.  No stories about their nicknames.  No chastisement about our snow driving.  Just nice guys who ended up helping out a couple of knuckle-headed kids in love. 

So Don’t You Hate it When you slide into a ditch and Alaska Joe gives you a lecture on how he is such a great snow driver and then tells you he that he could help you but won’t, then Alaska Joe gets in his van and drives off leaving you stranded in the cold? 

Well, if you made it through that long story, please go leave a comment for Shelle and tell her to pick my story, OK?  ;)