MomShots

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.

Last night we went to the park down the street and had a picnic dinner.  After we ate, I followed the boys around with my camera for a while trying to get some good Momshots.  I have to say that they are getting better at being photographed.  They are starting to strike little poses.  I don’t know if posing is good or not, but they are beginning to understand that if they are moving when I take the picture it will be blurry.

Anyway, there was a little section that was shaded by a large tree.  Magnus was crawling around in that area and he was just adorable so I decided to try out the trick with using the flash to eliminate shadows.

This idea is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately.  My Uncle Eric (who is a fabulous photographer) posted this tip here.  He said:

…the photo of the grape juice, try using the flash to fill in the shadows.

So I thought I’d give it a try.  My results were less than perfect but I’m OK with that because this is all a learning process for me.  This first one is overexposed but I can see that if I had used different settings it might have been a great Momshot.  The EXIF data on the picture says that I used an aperture of f/3.3 and a shutter speed of 1/180 of a second.  I probably should have sped up the shutter a little bit.  Maybe 1/200 would have been enough to get more definition around his jaw line.  He’s pretty cute though, isn’t he?  

This second one isn’t perfect either but I think it is closer to the desired effect.  He isn’t engulfed in shadow but he’s not totally blown out either.  Different settings made a big difference.  I used an aperture of f/5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/180.  So the smaller aperture made quite a difference.

It looks like I was playing with adjusting the aperture.  I usually play with the shutter speed and leave the aperture alone pretty much alone.  

I read the other day that one of the differences between an amateur photographer and pro is that the pros don’t ever show anyone their bad photos.  Well, since this is a site dedicated to learning photography, I am going to be showing a lot of my not so great shots.  Maybe one day that will change.  I keep hoping that I’ll download my camera and it will be filled with awesome Momshots.  One day…  

So I guess the moral of the story is to practice, practice, practice.  I am going to keep at this until I get some good consistent results.  That’s what this is all about.  

After my trip to the zoo last week, I came back with a whole bunch of MomShots.  I took photos of my boys, my friend and her boy.  I also took photos of a bunch of animals.  When I downloaded my photos onto my computer, I found that I really had very few good shots of my kids.  I was struggling with the camera settings.  That is one of my biggest struggles currently - Making sure that my photos are not over exposed or under exposed.  My camera has an automatic setting but I usually don’t like the results so I usually shoot in manual mode.  The photos taken with the automatic mode always seem a little too dark for my taste.  I think there is a way to alter that but I haven’t got that far in my reading of the manual yet.  

Anyway, my husband, Ben was glancing over my zoo pictures and made a comment to me that really struck home.  He said that I need to get down on their level a bit more.  I am consistently taking shots from my height (nearly 6′) and so all my photos end up looking down on my kids.  Same angle gets a little boring.

Brilliant idea!!!  Thanks Ben. 

So now when I am taking photos for my 7 day challenge, I have been thinking about ways to get down and more to their eye level.  I’ve been crouching, kneeling and even laying on the ground to try to get a different angle.

Here is a great example of a photo that could have been much more dramatic if I shot it at a different angle.  It is the white alligator at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, UT.  He is a pretty big guy.  I wouldn’t want to tussle with him in a dark alley way!

As you can see, I shot this from above.  In reality, there were a bunch of kids there so I was just kind of taking what I could get easily.  What I should have done was muscle my way down there and taken a shot that showed his body stretched out behind.  That shot would have been much cooler.  Maybe next time!

It’s a great zoo and so I’m sure we’ll be going back.

This next shot was taken at home.  I had some fence work done on my yard and when they guy left, he left the original cement with the broken post in a corner of my yard.  So basically, I have a little fence grave yard next to a mud puddle my boys play in.  Anyway…  My son was sitting on one of cement blobs in the shade and I ran over and took his picture.  I knelt down on the grass and started shooting.  I think I’m a little bit below eye level so that we are slightly looking up to him, but I think it looks kinda cool.  At this angle I feel more invited into whatever he is thinking.  I’m not looking down on him and I think it makes for a much better Momshot.

One of the things that I love about this is that he is covered in grape popsicle.  It had dripped down his chest and is all over his face.  He is taking a break from the heat before he starts running again.  I think this “break” only lasted about 15 seconds.  He’s always on the go!  

So moral of the story?  Change the angle you are shooting from.  Try any other angle than looking down on the kids.  It changes the nature of your Momshot into something more interesting and inviting.

Hello and Welcome to Momshots.com!

I’m super excited that you are here. This is a site dedicated to the photographing of our wonderful children. Here we will explore ways to take better pictures of the most precious things we have – our kids.

My kids move so quickly and won’t sit still that after an afternoon of taking pictures of them, there are no photos in focus. Not to mention that they get dirty in an instant! They walk out of the house in clean clothes and combed hair; I blink and suddenly they are covered head to toe in mud and somehow got some sticky substance smeared across their cheeks. I’m sure these problems are not isolated to my little corner of the world.

Do you have the same problems?

Let’s learn how to solve these problems!

Let’s learn how to take better pictures. Let’s explore ways to take great photographs of our children!

Together, let’s learn some techniques to better capture the magic of childhood and be able to show our children what a wonderful and beautiful time of life they are experiencing. Let’s discuss ways to save some of those not perfect, but not so bad shots. Let’s learn some new ways of looking at our subjects and let’s share some of our favorite pictures and discuss why they are our favorites.

I welcome your comments. I welcome your knowledge and your questions. I am excited to take this journey and learn ways to enhance my Momshots. I hope you join me on this adventure!

Let’s get started!