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.

Ok, well maybe not gold, but for something so inexpensive it can be an invaluable purchase. Check out Luann’s story and you’ll see what I mean. You should spend some time checking out her blog and Flickr photostream. She’s a super talented photographer who I follow regularly.

This is what she said:

I teach a little community photo class, which reminds me, it’s time to set a date for another meeting. Anyway, a few months ago I advised the other photographers in the group to get a UV filter for their lenses and keep it on at all times. The only exception would be to temporarily remove it if they needed to use a different kind of filter.

A UV filter helps a little with image quality by absorbing ultraviolet rays and cutting through some haze in outdoor photos, but the main reason I gave them this advice was to protect their lenses. A cheap $10 filter can be your first line of defense against scratches, curious babies with slimy fingers, dust, dirt and any number of other every day hazards that may threaten an expensive SLR lens.

Occasionally a more dramatic accident will occur, like what happened to me last Saturday. The short version is that my camera fell from a height of about 3 feet and landed face first on the concrete, jamming the lens cap down into the front of my favorite lens. When I picked it up I could hear the sickening sound of rattling shards of glass under the cap. With the help of my auto mechanic father-in-law, we eventually got the UV filter unstuck from the lens and this is what we found underneath.

The lens cap and filter, laying to the right, are still jammed together and all the broken glass you see on top of the lens is from the filter. I used dry canned air to very gently remove all the pulverized glass from the lens before I tested it. It looks like my little filter did its job and absorbed most of the impact from the fall because thankfully, I haven’t been able to find any problems with my $500 camera or my $200 lens. First chance I got, I was happy to shell out another $10 at my local camera shop for a new UV filter. It’s my little hero.

Seriously, after reading that story how could you not rush out and buy yourself a filter if you don’t already have one?!? All my lenses have filters on them and I highly recommend you doing the same thing if you haven’t already.

There are many different types of filters that you can buy. Some filters filter out the UV light and some filters are polarized making your colors a bit more vibrant. You can also find filters in colors like blue, red, green, etc. that can add a fun tint to your photos if you are feeling a bit bold. There are lots of different options. You can find them at any camera store and also at my favorite online haunt, B&H Photo and Video.

Fitting a filter to your lens is really simple. Look at the end of your lens and there is a number like 52mm (the size of my 18-55mm kit lens and my 50mm lens), or 62mm (the size of my 60mm macro lens), and many other sizes. You just screw the filter on and you are set. You never have to take it off again.

Hopefully you will never have to test out the protecting power of your filter like Luann did, but if that day comes you will be so thankful that you spent the few extra bucks and got a filter!

This Momshots tip is for those point and shoot cameras that have different preset modes you can shoot in.  You know, landscape, portrait, party, fireworks, whale watching mode - well not really but whatever, there are a ton of preset settings…  I found that when I would try to take some Momshots with my camera in the regular camera mode (My Nikon Coolpix 5600 literally has a picture of a camera on the dial) I was getting frustrated because I wasn’t able to capture the action fast enough.  I would hit the button and like 10 minutes later the shutter would open and close.  OK, maybe not actually 10 minutes, but when you’ve missed the action, 1/2 a second or 10 minutes might as well be the same thing!

I discovered the sports mode one day by accident.  I was thinking about my camera and the different presettings.  I may have even been reading my manual!  I started thinking that the purpose of the sports mode was to capture the action while the action is happening.  Isn’t that what taking pictures of my kids are all about?  Yep!  So I realized that if I put the dial on sports mode I might actually be able to get a halfway good picture - or at least not miss the action.  

It was the best thing since sliced bread!  I suddenly was able to take pictures of my kids and what they were doing when they were doing it.  This was a major breakthrough.

Now my sister, Olea, just bought a really cool Sony Cybershot.  I’m really impressed by what a great little point and shoot it is.  I guess I’ve kind of been out of the loop since my Coolpix has been working pretty well for the past 3 years; I haven’t upgraded.  Anyway, her camera doesn’t have a sports mode.  I was kind of surprised by that, but then on the other hand, the whole action of taking a photo seemed much faster than what I was used to.  It definitely could have something to do with new technology, but we’ll talk more about that later.  She is going to give me a little review of her camera, in the future.  So stay tuned…

My uncle Eric made a comment on a recent post about using the flash to fill in the shadows on the picture of my son, Garland, sitting on some cement.  I have been thinking about that and am excited to try it.  I didn’t get a chance to try it today but am planning on trying it very soon.

Today, I found the USB cable for my Nikon Coolpix 5600 (In all fairness, Ben found the USB cable).  That meant that I could download the Momshots off of that camera instead of using it for a shiny paperweight.  

One of the images on that camera is below.  It is my son Garland.  He is wrapped up in a blanket (handmade by my sweet sister, Olea) and he is hugging a juice cup.  This is true happiness for him.  Being snuggled and having juice.  His wants are simple.  

Anyway, I like how this picture looks.  I like the dark background and his bright face in the foreground.  I think it looks pretty good.  I love those big brown eyes!  I believe this was achieved by being pretty close to him and using the flash in a fairly dark room.  Not very scientific, but I like the result.  

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!