I've recently subscribed to the Digital Photography School blog, and today's post looked like a great one to share:
I haven't looked through them all yet, but thier daily posts are really easy to understand and quick to read, so I've enjoyed learning more from them.
While we're at it...I thought this was a VERY cool technique that I'm looking forward to trying:
Light Painting
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Submitted by Andrea on Mon, 07/28/2008 - 13:49.
My favorite night of our beach trip every year is taking family photos. It's a mad dash of directing the family, setting up the shot, pressing the button and sprinting to get into the photo and look "casual" when I get there. My father-in-law caught me in action during our photo shoot:
I look SO much more "pro" than I'll ever be! :)
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Submitted by Andrea on Sun, 06/22/2008 - 20:30.
I saw this super-cute beach photo idea at RonWainscottPhotography.com and just had to give it a try with our family this week:
I love it (especially in black and white), but I'm not sure it can beat this one from a few years back:
I have a very cooperative family....
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Submitted by Andrea on Thu, 06/19/2008 - 22:40.
After Ayla went to bed last night, Ben and I went down to the beach to walk. We watched the moon rise, and last night apparently was a special moon-night...there was a strawberry moon. It looked just like a sunset...going the opposite direction.
Unfortunately we didn't have our camera with us as we were walking, but
when we finished, we ran up and picked it up along with the tripod and played around with the camera. Most of the pics were a blurry mess, but we did get a few salvageable shots...and it was a fun thing to do one evening of our vacation:
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Submitted by Andrea on Thu, 06/19/2008 - 08:00.
While driving around the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri I noticed there are such cool signs everywhere. While we were waiting to take a boat ride yesterday, I went for a quick walk to capture some of the signage. I have no idea what I'll do with the pictures now, but they were just too cool to pass up! Here's a collage of a few that I collected:
And, since the one holding the camera is rarely in ANY of the pictures from the day, I was lucky to have my mom with me who could take a photo of what *I* did today. :)
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Submitted by Andrea on Wed, 06/04/2008 - 18:22.
While on vacation this week, I noticed that our entire family all has Canon cameras and they're all working overtime. So here's the Canon family photo (taken with a self timer on the bed, facing up...that's right....Grandma and Grandpa's bedroom at the condo has a mirror over the bed!)
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Submitted by Andrea on Mon, 06/02/2008 - 14:09.
So, I'm reading my
Parents magazine today and on the cover, they mention their
cover-model search. When I get to the page with the rules, I see that all it takes to enter is a digital photograph of your gorgeous kid that you can upload to their web site. Well I have lots of those...and I
do get stopped everywhere I go with people saying how adorable Ayla is.
But, I don't enter...not yet anyway. Mostly because Ben would kill me if he found out I did something like that without talking to him. But, he's a good check-point for me to really think about my reasons for wanting to do this.
They make it so easy...just upload a photo and forget about it. If you make it to the finals, they'll let you know. In the unlikely case that she is chosen, we get to go to New York and have a photo shoot and she has 15 mintues of fame. So why not, right?
There are two ways to look at it (okay, probably a lot more, but whatever):
First, the downside: My fear is that uploading a photograph of my daughter to the contest, I've taken the first tangible step towards exploiting my child by using her image and likeness to win something (that she likely wouldn't even remember...) Isn't that wrong? A matter of principle? I'm not sure....
Then the upside: Typing that out, I think it sounds ridiculous...after all it's just one photo, and if I'm not all about getting her into modeling or start some kid-career then it's really not that big of a deal and in the end would amount to nothing, right? Maybe it's just for fun, send in the photo and see what happens. If by chance she won, we'd get to go to New York and we'd all have a fun memory from her childhood. If she didn't even make it to the finals, then what harm was done, right?
So...anyhow, I'm torn...and curious.
What do you think about cute-kid contests like this?
(please note this is not the same question as "should we enter?")
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Submitted by Andrea on Fri, 05/16/2008 - 16:53.
My new lens is here! My new lens is here!
And what do you get when it arrives during naptime and I'm the only one home? Self portraits, of course! :)
Here's a comparison of the same pose, camera held at arm's length, no editing, no flash, no tweaking, different lenses:
Me likey! :) Let the photo-taking commence....
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Submitted by Andrea on Thu, 05/15/2008 - 14:32.
Tonight I was reading an interview with Tara Whitney (an excellent family photographer), and one of her answers struck a happy chord in me. Although I'm not a pro photographer (nor do I want to be), I think she sums up my love for photographing my friends and family perfectly:
For me, my number one favorite thing about being a photographer is being able to share it with my friends and family. I LOVE taking photos of all of the people in my life. I LOVE being able to give them something they wouldn't normally get. Especially all of my mommy friends, the ones wielding their own cameras and not IN any pictures. And I hope that the people I love know that for me, turning the camera on them IS love. Especially with my own children-the act of photographing them is one way I show my love for them.
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Submitted by Andrea on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 20:05.
I loved
Ali Edwards' post today about her approach to taking photographs. If I don't always match her photography practices, I want to. She has a very realistic and natural approach and style. And she makes it sound so easy to just take pictures--not "be" a photograper. I especially like this advice:
I am ruthless when it comes to deleting my photos. As I mentioned above, I don't need more than five (and probably less than three) from a similar series of shots. I simply delete, delete, delete. It makes for a cleaner folder of photos, less to choose from when I create a page (which can be a good thing), and I think I learn a bit about my self as a photo-taker in the process. Obviously this whole process of deleting depends upon the event and the story you plan to tell.
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Submitted by Andrea on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 12:34.
