How to get the pictures of your family that you really want

This is more a lifestyle organization post rather than a photography post . . . but if it helps someone other than me get the "important" photos then I think this is where it really belongs.

When I look back over the year in a "big picture" kind of way, I always hope that I captured the kids photos at (or near) their birthday. I always hope for pictures of the kids at Easter and a whole family photo at Christmas. Pretty basic right???

but it is surprisingly tricky to always get done. So here is what I have done over the years to make it more manageable.

For Easter, my goal is to have the kids wear their easter clothes on both Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. I try to take the pictures on palm sunday right after church so that on Easter sunday I don't have it to worry about.

For Christmas, my plan is to have the kids in all their Christmas clothes on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and we do the photos right after church.

This means planning their clothes ahead and not making their clothes be a "gift" on the holiday. It also means we get to enjoy wearing them as we herald in the season. It also gives me plenty of time to get the photos ready for cards and greetings.



In short, I don't EVER try to take these memorable photos on the memorable day -- I aim for time BEFORE -- then if those don't work out, I can always do them on the real holiday -- so far I haven't needed to. It makes the holiday more enjoyable for me and for the kids.

Fixing Glasses Glare

While photographing my brother's orthodontic practice, I got to "test" my ability to get a nice photo of an individual who wears glasses. It is harder than it looks. If you can control everything, it is easy, but sometimes you can't. For example-- In this group shot I could not change the light. I could not relocate them (this is where they wanted the picture). If I had Dr. Stevenson alter his head angle it did not look natural. So, I knew this would have to be fixed in photoshop! I made sure to get the group just how we wanted it. I also made sure that I had a picture of Dr. Stevenson without the glare, then I swapped the inside of the lenses. It took a little bit of patience and some transforming to get each lens to match up. But it was worth it! Check out the difference it made!
here is the original


and here is the edited. . . what a difference!

The Moon

Since the moon was the closest to the earth in the last 18 years, I figured I would take my first pictures of the moon. It helped that it was a beautiful clear night as well. I did not know how to photograph the moon so I quickly googled it. And now I will share what I learned.

First, uses a zoom lens. I longest lens I have goes to 200 mm -- I am sure 300 mm would be even better, but I don't have that big of a zoom lens so I used my 70 - 200 mm.

Second, tripods although nice are not necessary.

Third, you must shoot in manual -- with the primary concern being shutter speed. (wb set to auto, iso 100, aperture was set to the lowest that the zoom would let me) and then I tried a variety of shutter speeds.

It turns out that the moon is pretty bright.

Here are the various shutter speed results.


1/8000

1/5000

1/3200

1/1600

1/1250

and 1/40


I must say I was surprised that I didn't need a tripod for this, but at a shutter speed of 1/5000 -- you can hold still enough. I think they turned out great!

Metering and Perspective

These are 2 lessons I have really worked on lately. First, metering. My camera has 3 basic metering modes. Nearly all the time I keep it on the average meter mode (which looks like a filled in rectangle). But today this is the picture that resulted.

The light coming in from the window was so bright that the camera set the exposure quite a bit lower than I wanted it to make the whites and blacks average each other out. In fact the exposure is so low that you can hardly make out Nana's face. So I quickly moved the meter to spot (which is the small black dot in the middle of the rectangle) and set the spot point (which is also the focus point) right on Nana's face. It took less than 1/2 a second to switch that and check out what a difference it made. Both of these pictures are SOOC.


The next lesson I have been trying hard to remember is to keep in mind the perspective of my camera. Earlier today the kids were playing Uno with their Aunt Melissa. Owen rolled over and grabbed a card. I grabbed the camera and snapped a shot of him playing uno.


The picture shows him holding the card, but from the angle I am at, it doesn't really feel like he is a part of the game. I quickly dropped down lower and got this picture


which I like so much better. It makes him look like a part of the game.

So, those are just 2 things I want to always keep in mind to help me with the two most basic elements of photography -- exposure and composition.

Download a Free Action at MCP actions

I love MCP actions and she is having a contest to give away her new set of actions. So check it out here. You can download a free action at her blog or her facebook page.


This photo is edited with the free mini fusion action! I love it!

Bright and Vivid

Sometimes color makes me so happy. Especially when the world outside seems so white and plain and blah!

Grainy but beautiful

My new camera has some tremendous ISO capabilities and today I realized just how amazing that can be.

These were taken while it was totally dark outside with only 1 small light over the garage shining. I am at ISO 6400 -- it is truly amazing to me. I am not using a flash. This is natural light in the dark (doesn't that sound funny?)