Christmas Card Mistakes

1. I forgot to comb the boys' hair. I combed Ethan's half-way through, but not Jeffy's.

2. When I was inside, I changed to ISO 1600 so I could get a nice aperture, but I forgot to change the aperture, so only Jane is in focus in my best shot.

3. When I moved outside, I forgot to change ISO, so the first several were blown out.

4. I gave up too soon. I ALMOST got great pictures. ALMOST. Ugh.

5. I'm trying too hard to make them work.

Here are the results so far:

Here's a little collage--the boys are not in focus on the one on the left. Also, NO one knows that the theme of Christmas this year is Toy Story 3, so this little scrappy message is not so making sense.

I took Jane's race from a different shot and put it in here. I don't think it quite works. I couldn't get her head exactly right.

I like these pictures together, because Jane is smiling SO cute in the second one, but Ethan kind of looks like he needs to go potty, and there's this window driving me crazy in both shots. Plus, it looked kind of weird.

So then I put on a message. Now it looks a little too busy.

Then I thought of just having ONE picture, but the way I have to crop it just doesn't leave room for a cute message. I'd have to put it inside a card. And it's not really the CUTEST picture ever, so I'm just not sure.

So that's that. I think maybe I'll put them back in their clothes and try again. I DO like the red brick. It looks very nice. But there's all this nice snow! But Ethan keeps folding his arms because he's cold and ruins the shot, and Jeffy squints. Only my munchkin is cute. Hmph.

I'll probably try one more time and then I'll just use one of these if I have to.

OK, I've tried again. I got exactly ONE usable picture, but I think it's pretty good. Here are some card ideas:

Those are my card ideas. I will probably use one of these, but I don't know which!

365

Have you heard of these challenges? Sometimes it's taking a self-portrait every day for a year, sometimes it's just a picture a year. At first I thought, that's easy! I'm SURE I take a picture a day. But take a picture I'm creatively proud of, and fix it up, and post it? It sounds daunting.

However I DO want to try it! Perhaps I'll start in September? Tomorrow? Today? Never? Do I post them here? On Flickr? Is it just another stress since I can't even keep up on movie reviews?

Hmmm . . . I'm thinking about it.

A Session

So. I vowed I'd never do it, but so many people in my neighborhood have been asking me to take family pictures, I just decided I may has well start charging--just a pittance. I'd already told a few families that I'd take their pictures, so I'm going to do theirs for free, but after that, I'm going to set some dates with session times, and just let people sign up for those--I'll only have to work a few hours a day, on days I set aside, and then I'll quickly proof my favorites and give them all CDs and they can print them out on their own. I'll probably only do it before the holiday season, and in the summer, in case people don't love fall photos. Just a couple times a year. I think that will be fun! Maybe if I get better at infant photos, I can charge for those too, but I'd rather just do a session as a gift--then I wouldn't feel bad if they are ridiculous. I seem to be better at families. I guess we all have our forte.

ANYway, so since I decided to charge, I figured I'd better figure out if I can even DO what I'm going to charge for. I did a quick (30 min) session with a family--friends of mine--for free, and I think I feel pretty confident that I can get enough good shots that people will be pleased. Here are some of my favorites:

My friend asked me to take the pictures because of the ones I took of my kids and put on my mantle. So she wanted the same thing--some close ups of the kids in BW. These are what I got.

I was worried about the last one not being quite like the others, but it was SO much better than the other one I got of her that I had to use it. You'll see it in color later.

These are the best of the family shots I got. The little bear they are holding represents the little girl they just lost at 30 weeks.

Some of just the kids

I love that this last one really show their personalities. The water was pretty cold!

And for me, I love these next two the best. Such sweet girls!

YAY! I love this location, because there is LOTS of shade, and lots of STUFF--trees, rocks, water, bridges. But I really do need to find something else, or all my pictures will look the same. I took these at about 6:30 p.m. The light was lovely, but I want to try some at dusk.

Anyway I had a great time, and I feel pretty good about doing some cheap sessions for my own neighborhood. If I don't start charging and setting up sessions, I'll just end up doing a session once a week for free, and that isn't going to work for me. I don't think I'd ever advertise or make a website or anything, but this is "going pro" enough for me. :)

Photography Group--other handouts

In addition to the assignment below, I also handed out my suggestions for getting started and some info on exposure. Here it is:


My recommendations for STARTING OUT:

1. READ YOUR MANUAL. Every camera is different and you need to know yours. Besides that, most manuals give really great ideas about which settings to use for which pictures. Keep it in your bag and refer to it often.

2. GET A BOOK. I got Digital SLR Cameras & Photography and just read a little every day, taking notes as I went. It was mostly what I'd heard before, but rereading always helps really understanding. Just read a little every day and get other books on children's photography, or anything else you're interested in.

3. PRACTICE EVERY DAY. Just going outside or chasing your children around at least for 5 minutes a day really, really helps. Reading can only go so far. If you don't get it, keep going. It will click. Practice different kinds of things—motion, lighting, landscapes, closeups, everything.

4. PLAY AROUND WITH PROCESSING. Every single digital photographer processes their photographs afterward. Choose your favorite program (photoshop, picnik, etc.) and play around with your pictures to learn how things work. It really makes a difference in your pictures.


Exposure: how light works with your camera.

When you venture out of your camera's automatic settings, you need to be able to understand the three ways light enters and interacts with your camera. This exposure triangle is made up of ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. When you adjust one, you need to adjust the others in order to get the perfect exposure.


ISO:

In traditional (film) photography ISO (or ASA) was the indication of how sensitive a film was to light. It was measured in numbers (you’ve probably seen them on films – 100, 200, 400, 800 etc). The lower the number the lower the sensitivity of the film and the finer the grain in the shots you’re taking.

In Digital Photography ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The same principles apply as in film photography – the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain. Higher ISO settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds (for example an indoor sports event when you want to freeze the action in lower light) – however the cost is noisier shots.

SHUTTER SPEED:

Defined most basically – shutter speed is ‘the amount of time that the shutter is open’.

In film photography it was the length of time that the film was exposed to the scene you’re photographing and similarly in digital photography shutter speed is the length of time that your image sensor ’sees’ the scene you’re attempting to capture.

Let me attempt to break down the topic of “Shutter Speed” into some bite sized pieces that should help digital camera owners trying to get their head around shutter speed:

Shutter speed is measured in seconds – or in most cases fractions of seconds. The bigger the denominator the faster the speed (ie 1/1000 is much faster than 1/30).

In most cases you’ll probably be using shutter speeds of 1/60th of a second or faster. This is because anything slower than this is very difficult to use without getting camera shake. Camera shake is when your camera is moving while the shutter is open and results in blur in your photos.

If you’re using a slow shutter speed (anything slower than 1/60) you will need to either use a tripod or some some type of image stabilization (more and more cameras are coming with this built in).

APERTURE:

Put most simply – Aperture is ‘the size of the opening in the lens when a picture is taken.’

When you hit the shutter release button of your camera a hole opens up that allows your cameras image sensor to catch a glimpse of the scene you’re wanting to capture. The aperture that you set impacts the size of that hole. The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light.

Aperture is measured in ‘f-stops’. You’ll often see them referred to here at Digital Photography School as f/number – for example f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6,f/8,f/22 etc. Moving from one f-stop to the next doubles or halves the size of the amount of opening in your lens (and the amount of light getting through). Keep in mind that a change in shutter speed from one stop to the next doubles or halves the amount of light that gets in also – this means if you increase one and decrease the other you let the same amount of light in – very handy to keep in mind).

One thing that causes a lot of new photographers confusion is that large apertures (where lots of light gets through) are given f/stop smaller numbers and smaller apertures (where less light gets through) have larger f-stop numbers. So f/2.8 is in fact a much larger aperture than f/22. It seems the wrong way around when you first hear it but you’ll get the hang of it.

Depth of Field and Aperture

There are a number of results of changing the aperture of your shots that you’ll want to keep in mind as you consider your setting but the most noticeable one will be the depth of field that your shot will have.
Depth of Field (DOF) is that amount of your shot that will be in focus. Large depth of field means that most of your image will be in focus whether it’s close to your camera or far away.
Small (or shallow) depth of field means that only part of the image will be in focus and the rest will be fuzzy.

BRINGING IT TOGETHER

Remember that thinking about any of the exposure triangle elements in isolation from the other two elements is not really a good idea. As you change one you’ll need to change one or both of the other elements to compensate for it.

For example if you speed up your shutter speed one stop (for example from 1/125th to 1/250th) you’re effectively letting half as much light into your camera. To compensate for this you’ll probably need to increase your aperture one stop (for example from f16 to f11). The other alternative would be to choose a faster ISO rating (you might want to move from ISO 100 to ISO 400 for example).

The best thing to do is practice playing around with all three on manual setting until you understand how they work. Even zooming in will sometimes change the aperture, so be careful. Semi-automatic settings are also helpful in that you can change shutter speed and the aperture will change automatically, or vice versa. Keep trying until you figure it all out.

PHOTO GROUP Assignment 1: Light

Ok, so now this unused for a year blog is going to be the host site for our little photo group. Here I will post the assignments, and all are welcome to post their own pictures (give me your emails and I'll be able to invite you to contribute). We'll look at pictures during our group, but it's nice to look at them ahead of time and get critiques here, because we don't always have time to look at everything.

SO. Here's our assignment #1 (yes, it was stolen from my photography group of old.)

LIGHT:

Our first assignment was to TURN OFF YOUR FLASH! We're trying to shoot in manual at least a little bit every day to get used to it, but you are welcome to use Av mode while you're trying to just get some good pictures. We're working on finding light in your own houses. So look for the good windows, bad windows, and make it work. Then move outside and see what works best around your house. Here are the specific pictures you should take:


First, get a subject and photograph it using at least 3 different windows in your home.

Window #1
Soft window light/Close to window/ Light and Shadow on face.

Look for a window that creates a soft glow. No harsh light coming in the room, or sun shinning brightly on the floor. Position your subject near this window, so there is a light side of the face and a dark side. It doesn’t have to be half and half (split lighting), but experiment with how much light and shadow is on the face.

Window #2
Small window/ small amount of light/ Can you make it work?

Now look for a window that is very small (maybe the bathroom)....that lets in a little bit of light. Try to place your subject in the most pleasing spot for this small window. Don’t worry about the background...we are looking at the light. Change where you are standing, change the direction your subject is looking....See if you can MAKE it work.

Window #3
Big window/create flat lighting (no shadows on your subject)

For the last window sit on the ground under a window (or sliding door) with your back to the wall/door. Have your subject directly in front of you. Try not to block the light landing on your subject, you may have to move or duck a bit.


Outside
Move outside/ get your subject in the shade/ Look for catchlights in the eyes.
Now get outside. Look for open shade. Examples: A covered porch, in shade of a house, inside a garage, under a shady tree (without dappled light), or a totally cloudy day.

How to find the best spot? Walk around your subject and look into their eyes. Are the catchligths there? (Tiny highlights (bright spots) in a subject's eyes, caused by reflections of the light source.) Would those catchlights be better if they turn around? Do they have harsh shadows on their face. Have them look up a bit or tilt their head, WATCH the shadows as they do this. Don’t let the background determine where you take the photograph...only worry about the light.

Select your FIVE best images to post to the blog or bring next month. Feel free to bring your photos that didn’t turn out so we can discuss them.

A few tips.

Shoot in AV mode, (if you don't already shoot in manual) and select a few different f-stops. EXPERIMENT.
Fill your frame with your subject.
Take a picture of the entire scene...window,where the subject was standing, etc. It will help us all know your set up.

New Assignments and Color Issues

So, this month I'm supposed to be working on slow shutter speed pictures. I don't know where my tripod is, so I am kind of lame about it, but I did my best. I did some fireworks and sparklers (just the kind we did ourselves) and I'm glad I have time to read up some more, find my tripod, and try again on the 24th. But here are some I got that I will figure out how to fix up and have fun with:

So, we'll see what comes out of those.

Now, here are some I took with my babydoll eating an apple. I really wanted a big contrast between the blue of her eyes and the red apple, so I enhanced those colors. On photoshop they look great, and even in a slide show on Flickr, but just looking at them in my photostream, they look really processed and dark. I'm going to try them here to see how it goes here:

This first one is unprocessed, so you can see the regular colors.

These next three are processed--brighter eyes and apple.

Well, I think they look fine here, I don't know why they are being funny on Flickr. Any suggestions on color enhancing? Anything else I should do on these photos?

This was a hard one.

The photography group assignment this month (one of them) was to take self-portraits. At my current weight I try to stay behind the camera as much as possible. So this was hard. (Even harder to post them.) But I buckled down and did it. I tried several kinds of setups, but I liked pictures of me reading a book the best. I tried to really look natural. And since I just had to do the timer and run back and forth a million times, that was not easy. But I narrowed it down to two:

This is the one that looked best to me as a portrait of myself and probably the best composition. Jake chose this one as well. It's probably the most flattering, and it looks the most natural. Down side, my face is in shadow (except my nose!), and my eyes are very dark. Since my eyes are one of my best features and my nose one of the worst, that's just really the wrong way to go. (But I did do some editing to soften that contrast.) My hands were really bright and I poorly (for now) shaded them a little. And last but not least, the picture is not quite in focus. Is this really just a portrait of my hair? So there you go for that one.

Next:

Pros on this one, the lighting is much better. You can actually see my eyes. And it's silly, but I actually like the way my hair is going a little crazy. I don't look quite so tired. (I was tired, so this is the least tired shot--they bags are less visible.) And it is in focus, but still looks soft enough to flatter my skin. Cons are, I wish I were a little lower in the frame, my hand is a little prominent, the top of my nose is cutting the far eye in a weird way. Are those deal-breakers?

Anyway, I'm having trouble choosing. Any suggestions? The color ones looked a little weird, so I'm going for BW on this one, but did I do an ok job of converting? The second one had some really bright whites to work with.

The second assignment was a chronological series of something. The only problem I have with that one is choosing 3-5 of either A. Janey walking, B. Janey eating chocolate cake, or C. Janey eating strawberry shortcake. That's about it.