MomShots

We’ve been battling a cold this week. We pulled the memory foam mattress off of our guest bed and put it on the floor in front of my bed, pulled my pillows and comforter off my bed and have been snuggling and watching movies all week. I hate when my babies are sick but I also love it because it makes for excellent snuggle time.

This is my 52 Week project for result for Week 2.

If anyone wants to share their project, enter your info in Mr. Linky below. As a sidenote, if this Mr.Linky thing isn’t working the way it should, would someone be so kind and leave me a message about what it does. I tried testing it but I’m not sure… This is the first time I’ve used it.

If you want to use the little 52 week graphic, feel free. The html for posting it into your post is:

My friend, Kim made an adorable Valentine collage using photos of her kids to spell the word “Love”. I just can’t get enough of projects like this. They always inspire me and make me want to round up my kids and try to do something similar. I mean seriously, how can you possibly get any cuter than this?!? You can’t. Just not possible. Any grandparent or family friend would love to get a valentine in the mail like this. Plus it would also make a fantastic framed picture for your home.

Great job, Kim and thanks for being willing to share here on MomShots!

This is a cross post from my family blog. It was photography related so I thought I’d share it here too. Happy Valentines’ Day!!!

After much deliberating, I finally decided what to do for Uly’s Valentine cards for his kindergarten class. I was originally going to make this really yummy looking candy popcorn. I liked the idea of sending Uly with a treat instead of a traditional valentine card. However I started realizing that it was going to be a bit more work than I wanted to invest for all of his classmates.

This morning, (my sister) Olea sent me an email with a blog post to check out with a note that said, “Wish Lala was bigger so we could make these!” When I read that, before I clicked on the link, I was wondering what she was talking about. I started thinking about sewing for little girls or something like that. I wasn’t thinking Valentines’ Day. When I finally clicked on the link I was excited by what I saw because it incorporated photography, my kids and candy. I don’t think you can go wrong with that combination!

This photo of the finished product is not as good as I’d like it to be, but I think you’ll get the idea. You take a picture of your child with his hand in a position like he’s holding flowers or something. Then cut out a slit, punch a hole, or cut an “X” above and below the child’s hand. Then insert a lollypop. It looks like he’s handing you the sucker.

I loved the idea. Plus it looked easy!!!

So you got your fantastic new camera and you’ve been clicking away at everything under the sun. You may have gotten brave and moved it out of Auto and tried out some of the different modes. You may have even tried to shoot some shots in Manual mode. If you have, I am so proud of you!!! I think it’s kind of a big step to to try out the different modes and start to get familiar with how your camera works and how photography works. It’s pretty exciting!

When I first started with a DSLR, my camera didn’t have an Auto mode. The Nikon D100 only has Manual, Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority. So I was stuck hunting and pecking and trying to figure out what I was doing for a long while before I finally got the hang of it.

I really wanted to share with you my method for learning how to shoot in Manual mode. This worked for me and maybe it will help you as well. This is by no means the only way to learn to shoot in Manual, but it is the way I recommend.

Have fun!!!

Step 1: Turn the dial on the top of the camera to “M”. Ignore all other settings and modes. You can do it. Wipe the sweat off your brow and let yourself go. It’s not as hard as you might think and you will be so happy with your results.

Step 2: Open up your aperture. By that I mean, turn your aperture setting to the lowest number your lens will allow you to go. If you are wondering what aperture is, I think of it as how open my camera’s “eye” is. The lower the number, the wider the opening in your lens is and more light is allowed in. There are other factors that come into play with this, like depth of field, but I don’t want to worry about that right now. We can discuss at a later date. Check out this post if you want more details about what aperture is.

If you have a Nikon D70 through 700 you do this by turning the dial on the front right, below the shutter release button. And honestly, if you have a D700 and don’t know how to do this, I would be glad to trade you my brand new D90. I don’t want to talk down to you but seriously, that’s the current camera of my dreams…

Step 3: With your aperture wide open, you are now going to only play with your shutter speed. You just leave your lens alone and adjust how fast your camera “eye blinks” (that’s how I think of my shutter speed). If your camera “blinks” slowly then more light will get in and your image will be brighter. If your camera “blinks” quickly then less light will get in and image will be darker.

Just a side note to confuse you… There are other implications of using a fast shutter speed. You can freeze action when your camera “eye blinks” fast or you can blur motion if that “eye blinks” slowly.

Your camera has a cool tool called a light meter that can help you decide how fast your shutter speed should be. I didn’t discover this trick until I had been shooting in manual mode for a few months. I will share it with you and hopefully save you months of hunting and pecking. Obviously if I had read my manual from cover to cover I may have understood that but when I first started out I don’t think I understood enough about photography to even know why a light meter would be a good thing to use.

This is what your light meter generally looks like. If you look through your view finder you should see something similar on the bottom of your view.

How to read the light meter:
Point your camera at something you want to take a picture of. Your camera is going to gauge the light that is bouncing off of your subject. Your light meter has a plus symbol on the left and a negative or minus symbol on the right. In the center is a little “0″ and/or a larger vertical dash. The goal is to adjust your shutter speed to get your light meter to read “0″.

As you are pointing at your subject, press your shutter release button down half way and as you do, watch what happens. Do you see those vertical lines on the bottom? Move your shutter speed control (email me with your camera model if you aren’t sure which dial this is) and watch as the little lines move toward the left or the right.

Do you see that?

Now move the dial until the light meter is telling you it is at “0″.

Now push the shutter release button down the rest of the way.

You have just taken a photo that your camera believes is properly exposed. Nice job!

My suggestion is to now go play with your camera. Take lots of different pictures using different subjects and in different light. Get a feel for how this affects your photo. Watch what makes an over exposed (really bright with white spots) image and what makes an underexposed (very dark) image.

As you become more familiar with what proper exposure feels and looks like then I suggest start adjusting your aperture. You will then be able to see how shutter speed and aperture can work together to create some really cool images.

The key, for me anyway, is/was to start small with a bite sized concept like shutter speed. It really helped me to get familiar with my camera and comfortable so that now I can much more quickly adjust everything and take a properly exposed photo the first time. Usually.

Now go out there, open up your aperture and watch your light meter as you adjust your shutter speed!!!

An oldie but a goodie MomShot. Using a wide aperture you can get that nice blur in the foreground and background, keeping your subject in focus.

When I first started out in the World of Photography, nearly two and a half years ago, I was really confused on what some of the key terms meant. Words like Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO were all so confusing and didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I didn’t find definitions of those words in my camera’s manual yet the book kept using them over and over again. It took some time and patience on my part to seek out and and understand what those terms meant and what their practical applications were.

If you are in the same boat and are seeking to figure out what those terms mean, you can find some answers on Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman’s photography site. She has reposted a four part series explaining, in great detail with examples of what Aperture and Shutter Speed mean.

You can find Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four at each of these links.

I’m kind of taking the lazy mom’s way out here by pointing you to someone else’s hard work instead of taking the time to explain in my own words. However, if you still have questions or want my take on it, leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll be glad to talk about it. You can always email me at MomShots@yahoo.com.

As a side note, I’m really excited by all the responses I’ve gotten about this new 52 week project. Let’s work together to keep each other motivated! I’ll be posting my weeks here to help remind and motivate you.

Obligatory MomShot… This photo has absolutely nothing to do with this post. I just think it’s kind of cute because Ulysses is being such a tough guy and is all decked out in Nerf gear. I can’t very well have a MomShots post without including a MomShot, can I?

After yesterday’s great post by Rachael and Shanda, I realized that I wanted to get in on the action of the 52 week project too. I have been noticing that I have been taking fewer photos than I used to. I have lots of excuses, like being tired, sick, trapped in the house by cold weather, etc. It’s all just excuses. I am the master of excuses. I will transcend those excuses!

Another reason I am excited about this is because I have such a hard time putting together compilations of photographs of my kids. Again, I have good intentions but poor follow through. You might think that since I take so many pictures of them that I would have photo albums all over the place. I have none. That’s right; none. That HAS to change.

I tried the yearbook challenge last year and got a month into it and then I didn’t keep up my motivation. I just can’t let that happen anymore!

I decided to participate in this project so at the end of the year I can easily print out the 52 pages and have a great compilation of the past year. This will also force me to weekly work on my Photoshop skills. Hopefully that will also help me keep my goal of getting better at Photoshop.

I have decided that all my pages will be 8.5″x11″ at 300 dpi so printing and compiling should be a breeze. I am going to do it scrapbook style - or at least my version of what scrapbook style is. Sometimes I will add embellishments sometimes I won’t. Who knows? I’m spontaneous like that…

Here is my week 1 page.

Anyone else up for joining? Or have you already started? I’d love to see and/or share some of your 52 week project pages. Email me at MomShots@yahoo.com.

I am excited to see my Photoshop and photography skills by the end of 2010. I can’t help but get better if I keep up with this project and forcing myself to take pictures and compile them. It’s going to be fun!!!

Note from Jessica: I am super excited and inspired by this post. Rachael Grotegut and Shanda Atwood are both talented photographers and busy moms who live in my area (the Utah Valley). They are great ladies who never fail to make me laugh. I feel lucky to know them.

Text by Rachael Grotegut:

Last summer my friend Shanda and I each opened up a photography business. While its been fun to photograph other families and build our portfolios. We noticed that we both stopped photographing our children as frequently as we used. In fact besides a few shots for my oldest sons birthday, and Christmas card pictures. There is not much to show for the past seven months. I look back on the date labeled folders from other years and they are filled with memories. In 2009 I completely fell flat!

A few weeks ago Shanda brought up the idea of doing a 52 week project and I just had to jump aboard. Fifty-two weeks, one memory every week, captured on film…er…I mean digital media :). The idea is to capture their every day, the big moments, the small, and everything in between. Then compile the memory or memories you photographed and share them on our blogs, Facebook, etc.

I think this is a great challenge for all of us. Pull your camera out and get creative. Even if it might seem mundane at the moment, years from now you will look back and cherish these memories.

Encourage yourself to take more pictures.

Photo by Shanda Atwood.
Caption: Week one. My mother in law got each of my girls a porcelain doll for Christmas. Kayleigh named this one Kristy, because it’s Kristy’s doll haha. She named hers Kayleigh I did this shoot thinking it was her doll, I didn’t find out it wasn’t hers till the next day, oh well!!!

Note from Jessica: Today I am very excited to announce that our guest DadShots post is by Brett Birdsong, of Birdsong Photography. Brett is an extremely talented photographer from Pensacola, Florida but travels all over the US shooting amazing photos. If you want some inspiration, spend a few minutes looking through Brett’s galleries on his site!
I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did!

I have two little monkeys.

Jacob, who is 5, and Kylie, who is 4.

They are bundles of personality, independence, and insanity. Basically, small versions of me. This round of photos came about during a summer’s day about a year or so ago, in an honest attempt to get some “normal” portraits of the kids. I fall into that odd category of taking thousands of photos during a weekend in wedding season, but have virtually jack squat when it comes to photos of my own kids. I’m horrible I know, but I’m working on it.

So the scene before me was a big, fenced backyard, two freshly bathed kids under the age of 5 in clean clothes. Daddy, the professional photographer, with his fancy cameras and lenses, and the two perfect children to photograph. I could handle this right? I’ve dealt with crying mothers-of-the-bride, intoxicated wedding guests, and fainting officiants…I think I can handle normal photos of my own kids. Right?

In the time it took me to look down, adjust my camera settings, and fire off a few test shots of Jake, Kylie had found dirt, which had made it’s way on to her shirt and face. Jake found this worthy of a belly laugh, which encouraged Kylie, and within 5 minutes of walking outside with calm, clean kids, I had Goofballs 1 and 2 belly laughing at each other while I sat there watching, capturing the scene unfolding before me.

Lesson #1 learned - When I photograph kids, I now have no preconceived notions or ideas of what I’m walking away from that particular session with. There are no backdrops, no lights, no ” sit here and let’s give Sears some competition” photo sessions at all. To me, photographing kids, especially my own, is completely about working with the moment. Sit back, relax, let them be kids. You’ll end up with some really fun shots.

During the the course of the next 15 minutes or so, betwixt belly laughs and smudging dirt on each other, I had each of the kids stand in front of me and make a silly face. Anything silly, I said. I’d make a face at them, they’d make a face back. And out of the silly faces that were made, this collage of photos was born. Now granted, I didn’t get exactly what I had intended to that day. But what I did get was a few photographs of a brief moment in time where my two kids and I sat in the sunshine on a warm summer’s day and made silly faces at each other, and laughed together.

It simply brings back a really great memory of spending time with my kids. And I honestly couldn’t ask more than that from a photograph.

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.