Tip of the Week - Photographing Children

When my photography obsession really started, about five months ago, I stopped watching tv. I put away my knitting needles, covered up my sewing machine and let my novels sit, unread, on the shelf (wow, don't I sound like a thrill ride!). I'm definitely not known for my balance in life. I'm the kind of person who throws herself in, head first, with everything she has, and that becomes her everything (of course the people in my life come first, but everything else - "climb into the back seat!"). I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it's what I do. So, instead, I spend my free moments searching the web for every piece of information I can find about photography, and learning how to process my photos, and then I look for inspiration. That's my favorite part of photography - looking at pictures.

Anyway, I do have a point to all of this.  Since I've put in all the time figuring this stuff out, I thought you might like me to share what I'm learning with you. I've decided I will do a Tip of The Week.  It will most likely be on Thursday or Friday when I post this spectacular piece of information. Remember, I'm just learning this stuff myself, so I'm not an expert on the subject, but I like sharing, and I especially love sharing with you, my loyal nine readers (I'm up four more! Yippy!)

So here we go...
Today's tip is for those of you with children... or pets, I suppose.. or really short hyper-active friends...

Tip #1 GET DOWN!
The first thing to remember when taking pictures of children is to get down to their level. You will see this advice time and time again. It's everywhere, so try it, because it will make a big difference! When you shoot from above, you get everything from an adult's perspective, missing the point of the photo. You want to capture childhood, which means you need to show it from their eyes. Also, when you shoot from above,  you usually end up getting the ground as background which is often pretty boring.

Shot taken from above.

Although it's not the best shot of Juji, it's much better than the previous one.

Tip #2 Keep them Busy
The other thing to keep in mind is that children move FAST! I think the best thing to do is to find them an activity that holds their attention (that just happens to be in a place with perfect light and a simple background), and then take shots from all different angles.

Tip #3 Be Silly
When you want them to look at the camera forget about saying "look" or calling their name. That might work at the beginning, but kids catch on very very fast. Instead, say something ridiculous. I read someplace that a one photographer used to say, "oh no! I think a bird just pooped on my head!". I tried it and Bella looked at me with an expression of wonder and disbelief. It worked like a charm!  Yesterday I said something like, "OH! Is it raining watermelons?".

Looking for watermelons.

And then she looked at me (Silly Mommy!), and I was ready!

So there you have it. Go forth and photograph!   Oh, and don't worry. I have a blanket about to be cast on the needles very very soon.

Lucky Number 3!!!

The deed is done. I've sent in this photo - Number 3.

I'll let you know when they post the results. Keep your fingers crossed!!!

Exposing Myself

(I wonder how many times that title has been used in reference to photography. I bet a BUNCH of times!)

Oh, Exposure, my clever foe. Why must you insist on wrecking havoc on my photos?

As I promised, I'm here to share with you a bit about what I'm learning. Have I mentioned that I'm working on exposure?  This is a difficult thing to share tips on because a). I obviously struggle with it and b). once you switch your DSLR into manual mode, this is initially the main difference between a point and shoot and a DSLR, meaning it's a HUGE topic (and if you don't understand why that's a problem, see point a.)

I shall do my best though! Here we go... 

SOOC Underexposed. ISO 160 SS 200, f/2.0

Properly exposed, after Lightroom.

We'll start off with SHUTTER SPEED today, so you don't get too overwhelmed, ok? Relax. If I can figure this stuff out, you can too. It just takes time and patience to get it right. Quietly set your camera to M for manual! (Now you can yell and jump around because Yay! you did it!), set your aperture to 5.6 (or a lower #  if you want and can), leave it there and go find some nice light (evening light or open shade. Stay away from direct sunlight.) Aight, on we go...


Shutter Speed.
These are your  numbers like 40, 60, 80, 100, 160, 200, 250 and up into 1000... etc. This is the speed of your shutter (revolutionary explanation, I know!). This is essentially what makes your photo tack sharp or completely blurry. The higher your numbers, the faster the shutter opens and closes - freezing the image in time. So, if you have very low numbers, you can easily get blurry photos if ANYTHING moves because you're allowing your shutter to capture motion just by having it open longer. (Does that make sense?). The longer it's open, the more motion it's going to capture resulting in a blurry image. Have I beaten this horse enough? I hope.


Things to keep in mind:

•  Use your meter  inside the camera's viewfinder!  That's the little line of itsy bitsy lines and a 0 in the middle. You want to be on the 0 to get correct exposure. It's super easy if you pay attention to this (but it doesn't necessarily mean you'll always have correct exposure. BELIEVE ME!)

•  Lots of Light use  High Numbers
  
  
• Less Light use Lower numbers. The numbers are actually fractions of a second. So 200 is really 1/200 and is faster than 40 (1/40), if that helps.
  
  
• The general rule is when photographing kids or anything that moves quickly and unexpectedly, don't go lower than 160 or you'll most likely get blurry images. I'd compensate with a lower aperture or higher ISO. More on that in the the weeks to come.
  
  
• When you're photographing kids (or anything that moves unexpectedly), keep your shutter speed at  160 or higher (you  don't want to go lower, or you'll probably get blurry images) Hmmm... didn't I just say this? This must be incredibly important. YES, it is!

And this is to show that practice does pay off. NEARLY perfect exposure TA DAH!! I'll keep working on it, and hope that someday Exposure and I will be able to co-exist peacefully.

This one is pretty close to proper exposure. ISO 160 SS 250 f/ 2.0

I upped the exposure not even a  half stop in Lightroom.

After RAW Class Number One

Though I'm still not the Photoshop master I thought I was going to be after this RAW class, I did learn some important things about white balance and exposure and all the fun toggles in Camera RAW (the program that is part of Photoshop and starts up immediately when you open up a RAW file).  I typically use Lightroom, but it's more or less the same. (and for those of you who don't know what the heck I'm talking about, it really doesn't mater that much...unless you really want to know. In that case I'll tell you... but only if you ask me ;-))
So, this is what I came up with after this class. Julietta still looks like an alien child to me. Her face is too bright, but I'm not sure how you lighten the face without making someone look like they're from another planet. I am really interested to see what next week holds.

Here is the newest edited photo:

Before Class:

Straight out of Camera (SOOC):

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. The goal is to get it right IN CAMERA!!! I  swear, I was trying to work on getting good exposure, but sometimes you (or, I guess, 'I') just don't have time to change your (my) settings to get the shot. This was one of those moments. My girls were actually sitting down for a few seconds next to each other, so I ran like a maniac, got way down on the ground and started clicking away. It wasn't until about five shots into it that I realized I needed to lower my shutter speed quite a bit (or open up my aperture). RATS!

What have I learned from this whole lesson? That I really need to keep working on nailing exposure! So off I go...


Until next time, my friends, keep on clickin' on. Ha ha ha!

A Little Grain Never Hurt Anyone

I wanted to take pictures of Julietta in our living room, near the main window.  I set everything up while she was snoozing - moved all the coats that were hanging on the coat rack behind her, threw the the shoes underneath the love seat into a pile out of sight... etc. When she finally woke up it had clouded over and started to storm. I did snap a couple shots, but by this time, I had to crank my ISO up to 1,000 (I really hate using flash because I don't know how to use it right)!!! Despite these extreme measures, my photos were still under exposed. What happens when you use a high ISO without a professional camera? Noise noise noise! And what if you also underexpose your pictures?? You guessed it - noise that's more like grain. I mean, it's like newsprint.

"Who cares?" I say. "BRING IT ON!"  In my opinion ANY image is better than a blank piece of paper. It can serve to teach us what NOT to do next time, but it can also give us room to use our imagination and create something that we had not initially intended. I love the way this shot came out with some messing around in Photoshop (okay, okay, YES, I also used an action. You got me!).

Birth of a Photographer

Since there's a blog for everything these days, I thought I'd better start one up for this...

(drum roll please)
I've decided I'm going to try to do it. I want to become a photographer.

I feel so silly about this, and I don't know why. Maybe because it seems so artistic and "out there" like wanting to become an actor or painter. I don't know. Maybe it's because I've changed my mind so many times before about what I wanted to do when I finally grew up that I'm afraid no one will take me seriously. I'm not sure. I do know, though, that ever since I got my first camera when I was eight years old, I've loved taking pictures. When I finally got a real manual camera a little over a year ago, I started learning about how to use the camera. Now that I am finally learning about the art of photography, I'm hooked.

I know that I'm not a REAL photographer. Not yet anyway. And in order to get there, I have my work cut out for me. Right now I just want to learn learn learn!
At the moment, I know I screw up BIG TIME and OFTEN. I still get the wrong exposure when I'm chasing Bella around (especially when the light is changing). My focus is off now and again, I make lots of technical no nos like cutting off body parts and overexposing spots on hair and shirts - constantly... And my post processing?? Let's just say if I don't spend WAY TOO MUCH TIME on one picture in Photoshop or Lightroom, it leaves much to be desired. Let's not even get started on the most complicated - composition.

If I posted this picture up for critique, it would get torn apart. (straight out of camera or "SOOC").
I underexposed the foreground, overexposed parts of the sky, and cut off parts of both Alex's elbows, and both of Bella's feet. OUCH!
Still... I like the composition and the feeling of the photo. It makes me smile. And check out the fabulous colors.

And that's just the stuff I know about. Two months ago, I didn't even realize you weren't supposed to "blow out" parts of your photos. Hell, I didn't even know what "blow out" meant.

I do now, though! And this is where you come in, my very faithful readers (Hi to the five of you!) I thought I'd invite you all along on my journey. I'm sure it will be entertaining to watch, and at the very least, educational. You can learn a few photography tips as I learn them, and practice your skills along with me.

TADAAA! A blow out, just for you!!
See her cheek and arm? When you overexpose and lose all detail, it's called a "blow out". When I took it, I thought I was doing some real artistic lighting. Little did I know.

Anyway, here's the elaborate plan for this blog:

I'll try to post a little blurb about what I'm currently working on and learning about at least once a week. I'll share "the good, the bad and the ugly" of photography and post some of my photos (the good, bad and ugly ones, of course).


Pretty cunning plan, isn't it?

And someday... (sigh)
I'll become a REAL photographer.