Photo Tips: Photgraphing Babies

Hey everyone, Susan here again today. :) And I thought it would be fun to talk a little bit about photography with this post.

Since I had my son (Noah) at the beginning of June, I have been taking a LOT of baby photos. :) I love photographing babies (especially newborns!) - and whether you are pregnant and expecting a new baby, or have a little one already, these are just a few quick tips to keep in mind while snapping pics...

*Don't be afraid to move in on your baby! Fill the camera frame completely with your baby's face - Up-Close style shots like these sometimes "say" more than a full bodied shot of your sweet pea.


*Don't forget how cute baby "parts" are! Make sure to photograph all of the adorable small features - hands, feet, ears, belly button(!) - of your baby. These types of photos also make great "supporting" shots to accompany baby photos on a scrapbook layout.


*When you're just hanging out at home, and snapping endless candids (as I mostly am these days), don't be so quick to delete. While you'll probably end up with a few "good" shots...


the "bad"...


and the "funny"...


...are also fun to look back on and really help to accurately tell the story of your babe's early days.

:)

summer inspiration : photo ideas

While it's easy to remember to get snapshots of all the BIG moments in summer (vacations & holidays) - don't forget to bring your camera out to capture some of the everyday moments. Here's some ideas for recording the small details of the season.



(photo : Lisa Truesdell)

Outside :
*dirty feet
*grass stained jeans
*bottles of sunscreen
*skinned knees
*plants in your garden
*popsicle sticky hands and faces



(photo : Kelly Noel)

Water Fun :
*goggle-d faces
*kids wrapped up in towels
*running through the sprinkler spray
*sandy legs at the beach
*swimsuits hanging out to dry


(photo : Lisa Truesdell)

Out & About :
*your favorite flavor from the ice cream shop
*your teen's stomping grounds
*summer school or camp projects
*favorite booth at your farmer's market


(photo : Kelly Noel)

At the Park :
*favorite playground equipment
*picnic spots
*flying kites
*favorite walking / bike trail


(photo : Kelly Noel)

Friends :
*your child's usual playmates
*girl's night out
*bbq / picnic attendees
*your neighbors
*summer sports teammates, parents & coaches


(photo : Lisa Truesdell)

Inside :
*lazy mornings curled up on the couch
*stacks of books from the library
*favorite rainy day / too hot to go outside games
*sandals piled up by the front door
*packed up sports gear / beach bag / picnic basket

We can't wait to see the photos of YOUR summers - what details will you capture?

(PS : kits start shipping tomorrow, so if you had your eye on any shop items or add-ons, buy now to have them shipped with your kit for free!)

Thinking Ahead

So in preparation for enjoying the holidays more, I've started thinking about family pictures for the cards. I made my family go out on Saturday and take some photos, I'm not sure I'm sold on them, so I headed over to Flickr for some more ideas. I found plenty. Here are a few:

Photo Tutorial: Add a Little Pop!

Hi! I hope you all are having a wonderful fun filled weekend! :) I'm here to share a little photo editing magic with you. This is a quick method I use for brightening my photos and giving them a little extra pop of color. This is my original photo, straight out of the camera....


And here's my photo after editing...much brighter and more colorful, huh?
I use Photoshop Elements 3.0 to edit my photos...most of you all probably have a newer version, but the steps are the same, so hopefully this will translate well w/newer versions too.

The first step is to open the photo you want to edit and then create a background layer. You do this by simply clicking on the photo in the layers palette and dragging it to the layer square just above it. You can see the square highlighted in the screenshot below...

Next, we want to brighten up our photo...this one is a tad underexposed, so we'll use the screen layer to bring some light to the photo. Simply choose 'Screen' in the drop down menu of the layers palette.

You will see when you first click screen, your photo will look freaky bright and unnatural, so you'll want to adjust that a bit before we move onto the next step. To do that, just go to the opacity slider in the layers palette and slide it to the left...adjust this to suit your taste.

Now that we have added some light to our photo, we're going to merge these two layers before moving onto the next step. Simply go to 'Layer' on the menu and click 'Merge Visible'.

In this next step, we're going to play a little more with the lighting. So, go to 'Enhance' on the menu, then down to 'Adjust Lighting'.

A small window will pop up and you'll see 3 sliders and a graph. These adjustments are made to my personal preference...I don't have a special formula or anything. Mostly, I just play with moving the sliders until I get the look I'm after. The majority of the time though, I move the middle and right sliders to the left a bit and the left slider to the right just a touch. Doing this will add some contrast to your photo, which will create that "pop" we're after. When you're finished, just hit 'OK' and we're ready to move onto the next step.

Now, we'll add some more color to our photo. Go back to 'Enhance' on the menu, down to 'Adjust Color' and click 'Adjust Hue/Saturation'.

Another small window will pop up and you'll want to adjust the slider on the 'Saturation' scale. Move the slider to the right just a little...I usually try to stay between 5 and 10 to maintain a natural look.The final step is sharpening. We'll do this using the 'Unsharp Mask' feature. Click 'Filter' on the menu, then down to 'Sharpen', and finally 'Unsharp Mask'.

When the 'Unsharp Mask' window pops up, we'll make a few changes to the numbers and then we'll be all done. A good benchmark for sharpening photos of people is Amount: 75, Radius: 2 and Threshold: 3.

After you've entered those numbers, just click 'OK' and that's it! It seems like a lot at first, but I promise once you get used to it, you'll be doing it lickety split. :) Here's the before and after again...
I hope you enjoyed the photo editing tip...if you try it out for yourself, be sure to share a link of your before and after here. Have a great rest of the weekend! :)

Summer Photo Tips

Hi everyone! Sheesh, I really can't believe that summer is almost over! My kids have already started school so it sort of feels like it is over already... even though it is still blistering hot here and will be for months! I guess it all depends on what your definition of summer is and to me, I think of it as those months when the kids are all home, which means:

no schedules

vacations

swimming

swimming

more swimming

popsicles

staying up later than usual

did I mention swimming

oh and more popsicles!

This summer went by way too quickly for me! It literally flew by and I feel like we didn't even get to do all the things we wanted... but we did do a lot of fun things, one of which was a fun vacation to Utah which included cooler weather, some amazing photo ops and lots of fun playing with cousins and family!

I wanted to share a few tips for taking pictures in the hot summer sun today. I know that most of the time when we are out doing our summer activities we are faced with full sun that is bright and harsh -- not the optimal lighting situation right?

But, there are a few things you can do to help make your photos still look great:

1. Look for shade if at all possible.

This can seem impossible in the summer when you are out in the middle of the day, but often times you can still find bits of shade, even if it is just a sliver. Look for trees, look for some type of overhang or anything that might give a little shade. Even at our neighborhood swimming pool, I can often find some shade - either under one of the shade umbrellas, or under some of the architecture that is in and around the pool. Also, if you are lucky enough to live somewhere that is cloudy a lot or that has some haze, you can use that the same way as shade. It will diffuse the sun and make it a lot less harsh and bright on your subject! Here I simply captured a moment of quiet and stillness at the pool (in between all of the activity) when my son and his grandpa were sitting under the shade umbrella.

2. When you can't find shade, embrace the sun and use it to your advantage.

By this I mean to use the technique of backlighting which can provide for some amazingly beautiful images if done correctly. Backlighting simply means to place the subject so that the sun is behind them. If you face the subject to the sun, you will force them to squint which isn't appealing. Instead, you will want to put the sun at their back. Then you will just make sure to expose for the subject's face and not the background. Otherwise the subject will be dark if not completely black. This will cause your background to get blown out and overexposed but will give nice even lighting on your subject. If you do it right, you can also sometimes get sun flare which is "technically and traditionally" speaking not really a good thing, but "artistically" speaking it can be beautiful and I personally LOVE it! Backlit images will always be more hazy and not as crisp and clear as front lit images, but again, I think this just adds to the mood and the beauty of it!

3. Capture candid shots with the subject facing down or away from the sun.

You can still capture some great candid shots of your children or other family members even if the sun is shining right on their face. You just won't want to ask them to face you and face directly into the sun (which again would cause them to squint). You will want to let them look down or look to the side (or even capture them from the back like I did below) so that they are lit by the sun but not squinting from looking directly at it.

The above image is courtesy of Kelly Noel.

I hope that these tips will help you to capture some fun photos of your family during these hot summer months! And now we can all look forward to great images from our summer activities to scrap in the coming months!!

Photography Week Final Installment

Thanks for joining us this week! I hope that you had fun and learned some helpful techniques that you can use in your photography!

We wanted to finish off the week with a bang so I am giving away a spot in my next Online Photography Workshop!

I just finished teaching my second one and I have to agree with the students when they say that it goes by too quickly! (It seems like that is the story of my life lately though! :) ) I always have so much fun teaching these fantastic students and the best part is seeing how much progress they make throughout the course! It is awesome!

Here's what some of my students are saying. (Watch for a new testimonials section on my workshop blog coming soon!)

"I just opened my mailbox and there was our last lesson. I am feeling so ambivalent about opening it. I am excited to see what new you have to teach us but I am sad its the last lesson already. I just want to say (and I know this sentiment has already been expressed by many) that I wish this were not over and that I thank you from the bottom of my heart for so freely sharing not only the cogent basic instructions but also the the tips that short-cut a lot of the learning curve and get us loving our cameras - and not being intimidated by them. You could have been proprietary about the knowledge you acquired through your own study and hard work, but you are just the opposite.

I have such a long way to go to rough tune and gradually fine tune my photos but already I am reaping such pleasing rewards that it spurs me to keep taking, keep improving. Almost all of my shots are already such an improvement over those immediately pre-course. Really, I just can't express how grateful I am for this course, your style of teaching and your gentle, encouraging style of critique!

I am so sad this course is almost over. If you do plan additional courses in the future, I am pretty sure you will have a large audience among former students - me included.

Thanks Maggie."

Carol B

...........

"Let me just say I see a major difference in my pictures as far as exposure and lighting goes. I had the composition down, but needed/still need help with my exposure and knowing what to do in different light situations. Today, I took the kids to the pool and was able to get some bright happy photos without being overexposed and even was able to catch my son jumping mid-air into the pool with no motion blur. I've really enjoyed working in manual and am happy/relieved to find that its not as intimidating as I thought. Thanks so much Maggie for the great guidance, and all you participants that post your work so I can learn from it. Looking forward to these last few lessons! Have a great week everyone!"

Barbara roberts

............

"This is so much fun! I absolutley can not believe after 4 weeks I am shooting in manual and loving what I see! You are amazing Maggie!!!"

Adrienne Banaszynski

To enter the drawing for a free spot in my next class, all you have to do is leave a comment here. I will be draw a winner Monday July 8th so you have plenty of time to enter.... one entry per person please. The next class is getting quite full but there are a few spots left if you are interested in getting in. I will be doing one more workshop later this year and more next year, so if you don't get in, you can get in to one of the next ones. You can find all of the details and updates about my online workshop here.

Photography Week Installment 3

Hi there! It's me again... bringing you some more fun photography tips to help you kick it up a notch!!

Perspective

When taking pictures, there is always the option of shooting your subject from straight on and at eye level. This is something that we all do a lot and often makes for great images. But, it is always fun to change it up a little and try shooting from a different perspective or point of view. When doing this you have to be willing to get up high or crouch down low (or even lay right on the ground like I often do). Others might think you are a little crazy at the time but when they see the images, they will be glad you did it!

Changing your perspective also helps you to capture parts of the image in a different way and makes you see things differently..... like the wall in the image below.....

and like the yellow lines on the ground in this image. If I was standing at eye level to him, you would not see the yellow lines like this and shooting it this way makes the image more interesting and fun!

Changing my perspective in this image allowed me to get the blue lines in the foreground and it also frames him and the photo perfectly. Again, standing in the usual spot - at eye level and shooting straight on would have produced a nice image but this one ended up being a favorite because of the unique perspective.

In this case, shooting from down low allowed me to add some texture, color and lines to the image in the tree and the wall.... again things that would not have been in the image had I just shot straight on.

And finally, shooting from a different perspective in this one helped add to the playful nature of the photo. It helps to highlight her feet well and also makes it very clear to the viewer that they are the focal point of the image.

As you can see, I really love to shoot from a low perspective lately and this is a comment element in my photography. But, remember that you can also shoot from above and get some great "bird's eye" type of shots that way as well.

Mostly I encourage you to just go for it and have fun trying different perspectives. There is no right or wrong and you will never know which point of view is the most effective for a particular image unless you get moving around and try a bunch of different things. I promise that it will help to infuse a lot of added interest to your images!

Photography Week Installment 2

Hi there everyone! Maggie here.......

I am so excited to be cohosting the blog this week with the lovely Tina! And I am equally excited about the topic we will be talking about -- Photography! I am sure you know that it is a HUGE passion of mine and so of course I never tire of talking about it! :)

Photo Angles/Tilt

Today I am talking a bit about photo angles and tilt. This is one of the most common topics that I receive emails about. People often wonder if I do this in camera or in photoshop after the fact. And they also wonder if there is a certain formula or correct degree of tilt that I use.

99% of the time I create the tilt in camera while I am shooting. A few years back when I saw some other photographers doing this I absolutely loved it. I loved the added interest that it gives a photo and so I decided to start trying it myself. At first I had to make a very conscious effort to achieve this effect and to do it in a pleasing way. I admit it may even feel a little awkward at first if you are used to shooting all of your images with a normal straight horizon line (no tilt). Eventually it just became a part of my natural shooting style and so now I do it without even thinking about it.

The side to which you tilt your camera is just a matter of personal preference. I typically tilt my camera so that the subject's head is tilting toward the right, but there are others that do it the opposite way and that is fine too. This is just what feels and looks natural to me. (kind of like how some people are left handed and some right - there is no right or wrong here.)

I don't follow a certain angle degree when I do this, but you can see in the 3 photos above that it is just a slight tilt - enough that it shows and that it looks like it is on purpose, but not too much. The most common mistake people make when using this technique is tilting too much. In this case, a little goes a long way and it can definitely be easy to overdo it like in the image below.

My only real "rule" for tilting is not to overdo it like this. My general rule of thumb is that you do not want the subject to look like they are about to fall over. You also don't want to confuse the viewer as to whether the photo should be viewed horizontally or vertically. I always say that when you look at the image, if you feel like you have to turn your head to get the proper view, then you have overdone the tilt. In the image above I do find that I want to turn my head to the right in order to see it properly... and so I think it is too much. (the first image is the same image with a natural and pleasing tilt and it just looks so much better - again enough to add some interest but not too much.)

And my last comment is that sometimes even the tiniest little tilt is enough and also there are times when you don't need any tilt at all. The image below shows just a tiny little bit of tilt and I shot it this way because there was already enough interest in the composition of the image (texture, colors, etc.).

I hope this helps to answer some of your questions about how I achieve the look of photo angles/tilt. Have fun trying this out in your own photography! I bet you will love it!!