Tips For Photographing A Newborn

November 21, 2009

If you are now expecting or have just given birth to a newborn, you understand the pressures that are now upon you. Everything that you try to do now gets interrupted! You find yourself very sleep deprived, which makes it difficult to do even the things that were very easy before the baby came. And to add to all of this, what I am going to tell you won’t help your mood at all: The first two weeks of life outside of the womb are the best time to get pictures of your infant as a newborn. After that, they have grown so rapidly that they don’t look much like a newborn anymore.

Plan Ahead

I suggest that you plan ahead for just one kind of newborn picture that will be really special for you. Think about just what you want. A picture of the baby alone: Just the head & face, or a full body picture of the baby? A picture of the mother & the infant being held closely or nursing? A picture of both the parents with the newborn? Don’t try to do too many things, because it will exhaust you as parents. That’s why I strongly suggest that you choose only one kind of pose.

Pick A Special Pose

If you are thinking about a mother and baby picture, mothers should pick a very special nightgown and if it is sleeveless, do not wear a bra with straps under it as this will detract from the picture. If it is a nursing picture, a bra will also be a distraction. Have your hair fixed simply but nice, and if it is long pull some of it forward on your neck. Keep your make-up light and gentle. Plan to bounce your flash off a near white wall or ceiling, and be sure to watch your histogram to make sure the exposure is good. Have the mother hold the baby’s hand or do something natural as she gazes into the baby’s face. Be sure to frame both her face and the baby’s body in the picture. If you can place mother & baby near the soft light of a window to one side, that would add a lot. Don’t let your flash be too over powering. You might have to use flash exposure compensation to knock the power down. Most of all, mom should be well rested for the picture, so pick the best time of day for her.

Picture The Baby Alone

A picture of the baby alone is very special too. If the baby will be completely undressed, make sure the room temperature is comfortably warm for the little one without any clothes. Infants cannot usually hold their heads up at this age, so you should plan on some kind of support. Daddy’s strong hands would be great! A great place for the background is over a bed with a white sheet, and it can act as a safety net too! You always want to be considering the baby’s comfort and safety; don’t try to be too fancy.

Three Are Better Than One?

If you are interested in having both parents in the picture with the baby, you will need someone else to take the pictures for you. Use this option only if you have someone in mind who genuinely has an interest in photography, otherwise, you could be very frustrated trying to be both the subject and the director of the picture.

Try A Close Up

The picture should be a close-up that includes the entire body of the baby and at least the faces of both parents. Have the parents gather round the baby (you don’t want any straight lines here) and have their focus be on the baby with a touch of endearment noticeable between the parents. Something like if the mother is holding the baby, have the father gently touch the mother’s hand too!

Use An External Flash

All of this information will be easy for you if you have a digital SLR camera with an external flash. This means that you will have a lot of control over the picture that you are trying to create, and can evaluate almost immediately whether or not you have what you want. One last thought, keep the focus on the eyes; especially the babies!

Put Stunning Pictures Of Your Kids On Canvas For A Special Gift

November 19, 2009

Thanksgiving is just around the corner with the mad rush to Christmas in sight, but there is still time to be creative with your gifts this year. All too often the last minute rush of Christmas shopping has us buying gifts for our partners that are uninspired, and that a year later have either been forgotten or worn out already. If you want to give your husband or wife a really special and lasting present this Christmas, why not put one of your best pictures of your kids on canvas, as a meaningful gift that will last forever.

A beautiful canvas print isn’t cheap, but it is far better value for money than an electronic gizmo or a few shirts that might not ever get worn. Displayed on the wall of your living room or in your bedroom you will both enjoy looking at it every day for years to come. Good quality canvas prints will last for many years, long enough to be handed down to the next generation, so you can even look at your gift as a family heirloom in the making!

You may already have a perfect picture of your kids in mind; one where you have captured a happy moment, when they are full of life and energy smiling and with eyes sparkling. It could be a close up portrait just showing head and shoulders, or one showing them busy and active in a picturesque landscape, perhaps at the beach during the summer or running through the gorgeous fall leaves.

If you haven’t got a picture you are happy with, then grab your camera and your kids on a dry day (it doesn’t have to be sunny, you can get some gorgeous photos with the soft light of a cloudy day) and head out somewhere pretty; it could be a park or the beach, a mountainside or a the steps of a fine city monument. Take loads of photos of your kids, from close-ups to action shots. Keep shooting more and more pictures and think of fun activities that your kids will enjoy; jumping off rocks, peering into rock pools, hopping down steps, playing hide and seek behind trees. Catch natural shots as they play and set up a few more formal poses in between, while they are full of energy from their games.

You only need one picture for your canvas print, but you will end up with a whole series of fun pictures that you could use to create an album with later too. The hardest part will be choosing which picture to use for your gift. It doesn’t have to be technically perfect, it is the emotion of the picture that is important, so choose one that really conveys a happy feel.

So now you have one of your most important gifts sorted for Christmas and can relax a little, knowing that your canvas print will be delivered to you soon, saving you that last minute frenzy of the mall on Christmas Eve.

Colorful Boxes Make A Great Photo Storage Solution

November 17, 2009

Our digital cameras free us up to take more photos than we ever did on film. Our children grow so fast that we photograph them at every opportunity to preserve memories of them for ever. But the problem is, will those photos last forever? Digital photos are even more vulnerable than film used to be. A computer can crash losing all your files, and even if you have backed up all your pictures on to CD, those CDs can be corroded over time if not kept in optimum conditions. This is why it is so important to find a good long term photo storage solution, to protect all those precious memories that you’ve been collecting.

Backing up your photos on to archive quality CDs and DVDs is only the first step. Those CDs need to be protected from dust, humidity and great temperature fluctuations. Just sealing them in a plastic storage box isn’t the answer. Plastic can give off corrosive vapors that will gradually deteriorate the surface of the CD, affecting the pictures stored on them. CDs and DVDs need an acid free environment and then they can last for as much as 100 years with picture quality intact.
An ideal storage solution is to keep your CDs in a box storage system made from acid free paper, in corrosion proof sleeves.

Exposures have a great range of acid free boxes in perfect sizes for CDs and prints and you can choose from several color ranges, to match your home décor. In fact the boxes will look so good stacked on open shelves that you might be tempted to get more boxes to store other things in too. I can’t decide if I like the Brights collection or the Autumn Spice warm colors best, and then there is the Beautiful Baby Collection in pastels for all your baby photos.

The great thing about having safe storage boxes for your prints is that if, like me, you haven’t got around to making the definitive family album yet, you can keep collecting prints and know that they will be kept safely until the day you eventually do get around to putting them in your album. And if that day never comes you still have your photos neatly organized to look through and enjoy the memories just the same.

A selection of these boxes would make a great gift for an enthusiastic photographer too.  Print off a few special pictures to go in the box as part of the gift and you will be giving them the gift of memories lasting a lifetime.

Why Should I Buy a Digital Camera?

November 16, 2009

Just what is so special about a starter digital camera? Well, first of all, there is no film to take to Wal-Mart or a photo shop to be developed. As soon as you take a picture, you can open it up and look at it on your computer if you have installed the software that comes with the camera. Your camera should also have instructions for transferring the photos to your computer. However, it’s simpler to use a viewer, which you can get at a computer store or online. Viewers interface via USB. All the money you regularly spend on having film developed will be saved as well as the nuisance of taking film and leaving it and going back to pick up the pictures, many of which will not be what you had hoped for.

Secondly, you can see what you are going to shoot on a small screen built into the camera. You can also look at it again after you shoot. If the shot isn’t what you want, you can shoot again immediately. Both of these features make it possible to get photos that satisfy your wants and desires. Most people take many more pictures after they discard their non-digital cameras in favor of a digital one.

Take the time to organize your computer files so you can find the photo you want when you want it. It’s a good idea to label a photo with what is in it, so you don’t have to open all the ones with the original number codes in order to find just the one you’re looking for. An example: front of Tennessee house with flag.

With practice, most people become quite proficient with their starter digital cameras. Being able to share family photos online with all their friends and relatives at absolutely no cost makes the price of a digital camera extremely attractive and reasonable. In addition, the purchase of an inexpensive photo printer expands the possibilities.

You can afford to buy attractive frames when you spend so little producing a special picture for Christmas presents. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, and other friends and relatives love to collect a wall of pictures of family they do not get to see all the time. In fact, even if they get to see them all the time, they will treasure gifts of special pictures. For example, you see how cute and enchanting your toddler is in his everyday activities, so if you use your digital camera to take a lot of shots, you will come up with just the right one or ones to make the grandparents very happy.

Hand Them The Camera!

November 14, 2009

Teenager in the family?

Hand them the camera!

One late summer day in September when I was a teenager, I was asked to watch my little sister, Ruth while my parents did something unusual for them; enjoy something that was not work. They were going to get a free airplane ride from Klein Fertilizer Company to view their farm from the air as a “thank you” for their business over the years. Because I wanted to see the airplane that my parents were in and when it flew over photograph it too, I decided to dress up my little sister and “chase” her around the yard of our farm and try to get some good pictures of her.

Don’t Know Much About That

I didn’t know much about photography at all; I only knew that things were changing before my very eyes and it was not being recorded in pictures for my family to remember. Dressing up when you are a farm kid is not something that happens very much or by accident. Some farm animal or some thing is always getting your clothes dirty or torn. In addition to that, in order to make ends meet in a business with small profit margins, the kids wore hand-me-downs from other people’s kids or their older brothers and sisters most of the time.

And so, with my parent’s permission I found a cute outfit for little Ruth to wear for the pictures I was going to capture of her and we combed her hair and wiped her face and hands off so that she would look her cutest and best!

Take Advantage Of Unexpected Opportunities

I let Ruth keep the comb in her hands as she was not willing to give it up just yet; no harm in that being in the picture, I thought. Almost immediately the pet dog, Sport, wanted to get in the picture too! That would be a good one I thought as I studied the scene for the best angle. You can see that I didn’t do too badly as the light is coming over her left shoulder. I can see today that I should have moved in closer though, because there is a lot of wasted space around her and the pet dog.

Look For Props

Then there was a black walnut tree nearby, and with the comb still in her hand, I asked her to put her hand on the tree as I took another picture. That one turned out good too, especially since fill flash was almost unheard of in those days. However, I didn’t understand the rule of thirds then, so that composition understanding was not applied to show the benefit of how that would have contributed to an even better picture.

Some Things Are Too Hard To Get

Soon, the airplane carrying my parents was flying over head. You know that it’s the right one because the pilot comes down to about 500 feet over the farm and circles it. Quickly, I snapped a picture of the airplane! However, I did not have the option of using a telephoto lens to bring the airplane closer, therefore the airplane is just a dot in the sky!

Finish The Shoot

With the airplane now gone, I took one last picture of my little sister sitting on her haunches beside the box of my prized little Kodak Starmite camera. The light was right and showed her little face well, but as you will notice, no artful rule-of-thirds was applied and there is more picture of the green grass than there is of my baby sister!

Mission Accomplished!

That was it! I took only four pictures! Remember there was only 12 pictures on the roll, and I was paying for the film, and the developing, and the printing, and all with just money I made from baby-sitting for other families children.

Ah For The Good New Years!

Today, all of that is different! With your digital SLR camera, your teenager can study the results of their photographing almost immediately. They can take many pictures without incurring additional expense. And if they are interested in art and recording memories, your family will get the benefit of at least a few very beautiful portraits!

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