Tip of the Week: Sparkly Eyes

Oops! Last week I said that I would post a new tip every Thursday or Friday, and here it is Saturday, and no tip. Can you ever forgive me? To make up for it, I'm going to share a real quick and easy one today that you can do with a point and shoot or a DSLR. It's all about the eyes.

Big, beautiful, sparkly eyes

Before I had learned anything about photography, I remember telling Alex, "I really love those pictures that you can see sparkles in their eyes." Now, I love sparkly stuff to begin with (I have been both a sparkler and a "sparkle monster" for Halloween just to give me an excuse to wear lots of glitter), but I was really on to something when I mentioned this. Do you know the sparkly eyes I'm talking about? Black and white images of babies come to mind when I think of them. All you really see are these big beautiful baby eyes.  Anyway, little did I know that you really REALLY want those lights in their eyes! They are called "catch lights" and it makes your subject seem alive and vibrant, of course, even more stunning.

No Catch Lights (or very minimal catch lights):

So, how do you get these so called "catch lights"? You turn your subject towards the light source. Easy as pie! If you're not sure where you'll get the best catch lights, take your subject and just turn him/her until you see those eyes light up like magic! It really is something spectacular, and so easy to do.

 Fairly Awesome Catch Lights:

And this one I don't love, but her catch lights are sparkly. Sometimes you can even see the photographer's reflection in the subject's eyes. I think that's pretty cool.

So there you have, your fabulous photographic tip of the week. May you have beautiful weather this weekend, and plenty of opportunities to use your camera!

Like the Blink of an Eye

My how time rushes past us, doesn't it? I am still a bit bewildered that it was six months ago that Julietta came to us through the most beautiful birth I could imagine- house flooding and all.  I don't like to think about how quickly my kids are growing up. My eyes well up just thinking about it. But I do.

Julietta's refusal to be put down often frustrates me. I occasionally catch myself rolling my eyes when she wakes up five minutes after the major effort it took to finally soothe her to sleep. She's at that stage now where she clutches on to every single thing within reach. I can't even count how many times she's nearly pulled my plate down on top of me while eating (she won't let me put her down, so sometimes that means having a laptop companion through dinner). Yesterday while holding her, I reached down to get a glass of water from the water cooler and when I stood back up, I noticed that we had gained some extra cargo - she was holding the garbage pail lid. And it's HEAVY! Or what about the wobbly way babies begin sitting on their own?  You never know how long it will be until they end up in a full out faceplant. It can be pure chaos, but man, this is what it's all about!!
These are the things I will smile about later. So when I feel the frustration brewing under the surface, I remind myself that it will all be over sooner than I even want to imagine.

Here are a few more little things that bring a smile to my face when I think of Julietta: She is freakishly strong and can pull herself up to standing - in her stroller. She's a pincher and a biter and she constantly rubs her feet together. She absolutely adores her sister and her papá, and when she wakes up in the morning, she greets the world with a smile, and it's not just any smile. It's a joy-filled, ear to ear, bust at the seams grin. Sometimes it seems that it's hard for her to contain herself - she's just so darn happy - so she has to resort to short, piercing squeals. She reminds me of one of my favorite poems called "Joy" by J. Ruth Gendler.

She is in love with life - all of it - the sun and the rain and the rainbow.

Her two bottom teeth just popped through and now she makes all kinds of funny faces while she sucks on her lips.

This is my sweet Jujicita.

Before she was born, Hailey asked me what I'd call her for a nickname. I thought it would be "Jules", since I'm not the type to make up unique nicknames for people... or so I thought. I've not called her "Jules" even once. I call her things like "Juji", "Jujitsu", "Jujifante" "Juji Fruit" and other silly stuff like that. Maybe "Jules" will be used when she's a teenager and too cool for school.

For her six month photos, we took the girls down to the beach and set them free. I brought down Julietta's Moses basket with the cover that Yaya (her grandma) made from scratch. That woman has some mad sewing skills! I wish I had more time to sit down and learn from her. I know this will be something I will regret later.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure to get a picture of it before Juji got too big for it. It turned into a sailboat somewhere along the way.

Bella concentrated on keeping the umbrella stationary while Julietta laughed and played. I foresee more of this in the future!

Happy six month birthday, my sweet, joy-filled baby girl. I love you with everything I have.

I LOVE the Sunshine.

Sunshine is my friend. I love it. When I was a little girl, I would wish for sunshine on my birthday every single year. Having a June birthday, you'd think I'd have gotten it most of the time. You'd be wrong. I'm from the Seattle area.  One year, though, I do remember making homemade ice cream in one of those old fashioned ice cream makers that you have to crank. And crank.  And crank some more. After all the cranking, we were so ready to eat the ice cream, we didn't even care how it turned out.  Good thing too. The old fashioned ice cream maker was a find my dad had picked up at an antique store (he was an antique dealer) and it definitely had its flaws. It wasn't water proof and the salt had seaped into the vanilla creamy goodness. Did we eat it anyway? Probably.

That reminds me of another story... peanut butter and caviar sandwiches... but I'll save that for another day.

But, I digress. Again. Where was I? Oh yeah, sunshine, oh sunshine....

Laura was up to do another shoot on Saturday afternoon. We met earlier - about an hour earlier (does it seem to be getting dark waaaay too early to anyone else?!), and we played with the light. We played and played and played. And it was fun. (At least it was for me.... Laura?)

Laura, as you can see, is a complete and utter beauty. She doesn't think so, and I told her "you're crazy, lady! You're SMOKIN'!" She thought it was funny when I said "smokin'". But she is. I think you can see that.

Laura has been my friend for quite a few years now. I met her at our café/cocktail bar, The Bohemian Café, and she even worked for us for about a year. She's a Leo, so we get along smashingly well (I've always wanted to say 'smashingly'). She's easy going, and fun to be around, and likes to crack jokes.

This is what she did when I told her to open her eyes wider.

Shall we talk about the technical side of the shoot? I suppose... I felt that I got pretty good exposure most of the time, which can be hard with backlight and a setting sun, so I did give myself a little pat on the back for that. Composition was ok (we avoided the hand clutching arm pose), but it still needs some work. The flaws were many, but I still love these images. I guess that's all a part of the growth process, though, right? My favorite thing about these photos (besides Lovely Laura, or course!) is the light. I LOVE the sunshine.

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.

Wake Up Call While Shooting Laura

You guys are too much. Thank you so much for all the positive comments you've been leaving. It really makes my day. The problem is, though, I think it may be going to my head!! I was really starting to think I was getting the hang of this photography thing. I nearly caught myself exhaling warm air onto my fingernails and then buffing them on my shirt, while looking at myself in the mirror and saying "you are RAD!" (Then I nearly put my sunglasses on, turned on my heel, flicked my hair, threw my jacket up over my shoulder and strutted away).  Wait... was that me, or a cheerleader in a 1980's teen movie?  Whatever... The point is that I started feeling like a certain destiny was waiting just on the other side of the horizon... (help! can.not. kick. eighties. theme!).

Well, I got a taste of reality today to put me back in my place.  I tried doing a photoshoot with an adult. My beautiful friend, Laura, let me photograph her this afternoon. Despite the fact that I didn't need to chase after her just to get her to look at the camera, and that she would just sit there letting me take photo after photo (and even did what I asked her to do), it was HARD! Finding interesting poses wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I had even researched before and made myself a notebook of poses from fashion magazines, but in the moment, I fell short. Plus, the light was horrible. That was the most disappointing thing about the entire situation. The photos were all grainy because it was overcast so it got dark super duper early and I underexposed the majority of them. I'm posting some of my favorites, because even though they didn't come out perfectly, I still loved quite a few of them.

I loved the close up ones. See what amazing skin she has?! JEALOUS! The rest of them were just as beautiful, but I managed to catch her nose at a weird angle, or catch focus on her eyebrows instead of her eyes. Doh!

I do love this one. About 80% of the poses I told her to use look exactly like this, but now I know what to work on.

¡¡GUAPA!!!

I feel like I should post some of the bad photos so I'm not misrepresenting myself, but that sucks for Laura. Who wants anyone to post bad pictures of them on the internet? Not me for sure. So, I'll post one of my favorite bad ones, leaving you and your brain to imagine what the rest are like.

Oh, and and the good news is, Laura is so freakin' gorgeous, she saved many of the potential "reject" photos. They may be grainy and lacking originality, but Laura's genuine beauty overpowered them.


(Ok. I'm ending this post and all my cheeseball commentary. Jeez!)

The Obsession Continues

Are you getting tired of me talking about workshops? Am I blabbing on too much? I'm sorry, but you're going to have a to bear with me a little longer because I'm just too excited to contain myself.

These photos have NOTHING to do with this post. But I figured you'd get bored with just words.

A few weeks ago my fellow photographer friend, Marty, sent me a link to CreativeLive, which is basically an online classroom. He mentioned Jamine Star, a very well- renowned wedding photographer, would be doing a free workshop. Now, I remembered that my amazing photographer friend (and my very first best friend in the whole wide world), Leah, from The Salted Image, had gone to a Jasmine Star workshop in California, not long ago, so I thought, "What the heck: I'll check it out".

Let-s get this out in the open right now - I'm not very interested in ever doing wedding photography because, well... because to tell you the truth, brides scare the crap out of me! It's just too much stress. I've taught 20 five- year- old kids mostly on my own before. I've run a café before fully understanding how to make Spanish coffee. I've lived in a country before I could understand ANY answer to ANY question. Those are all particularly stressful situations, but a bride on her wedding day? Let's just say I prefer to take my head home with me at the end of the day, thank you very much.  Anyway, reservations about wedding photography aside, I decided to watch. It was going to be a five day event all revolving around a real live wedding that took place in, of all places, Seattle, Wa!

So I tuned in. I had Bella stay with The Ya Yos (her grandparents), and I watched from 9 pm to 2am! What a good decision! It was incredible. She shared all her secrets and tips to running a successful business. On the second day she did the "first look" and we watched her pose the bride and groom and saw how she talked to them to calm them down and make them look beautiful instead of like stiff robotic people. To me, this seems to be one of the hardest things about photography - getting people to look natural and relaxed. I don't tend to like posing, and prefer capturing real moments, but how do you do this during a photoshoot? I still don't know, but now I have some more ideas.

See what awesome posing techniques I learned? Does she look natural or what?! ; )

What did Jasmine do? She told them how fantastic they looked over and over and also kind of made a fool of herself. (I'm totally set, because I do this most of the time anyway, so it's right up my alley). Yesterday, was the wedding. It didn't start until after 2am my time, so I only caught the very beginning of it. But, man, how cool to see a live wedding and watch EXACTLY how the photographer works her magic. And magic, it was. I can't wait to see the photos.

Ok, you made it! I'm done talking about workshops... until September 13th when I start The Creative Light Workshop.

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!!!