Photographing A Child At A Birthday Party

January 20, 2012

Photographing a child at a birthday party is something parents and grandparents should plan ahead to do.  Birthday parties for young children are all the rage right now in our culture. Those of us from a previous generation of young children would usually let a young child sneak a bit of frosting from their birthday cake and they were allowed to enjoy a piece of cake in whatever manner they pleased, but today a young child is allowed to destroy the whole cake! Especially on the first birthday.

As a parent or a grandparent you won’t want to miss getting at least a few very special pictures of your child at a birthday party. Even though the conditions are not usually very ideal for photography,  please don’t leave your best camera home.  You will need some of the flexibility that it provides!

Our little granddaughter just turned two, and her mother gave her a party inviting 32 people to their little house. Well, the little girl was very fortunate in that all the guests were not able to make it. As it turned out, just the right number came including a few very special adults, and just two more children. One child for every year of her age right now! (more…)

Capturing Photos Of Your Children Requires A Sense Of Urgency

January 10, 2012

My husband and I were celebrating our wedding anniversary in the Blue Ridge mountains of Ashville, North Carolina at the Biltmore Estate and were staying right on the grounds at the beautiful Biltmore Inn. The lobby of this beautiful hotel was all decorated for Christmas complete with a large tree and attractive toys around it, all from a bye gone era. In the evening I noticed one little boy, in his pajamas who was in the antique toy car playing. Later in the evening he was still on that car and obviously enjoying himself immensely. In the morning, again, I was surprised to find him still in his pajamas and playing on that antique car once again. What a great portrait opportunity, I thought to myself. Parents, in the business of life, don’t often get the chance to have those wonderful memories of their children, and all in a beautiful setting (created by someone else by the way) perfect for a very special portrait, and these parents and grandparents, if they were there, missed it!

After enjoying breakfast in the hotel dining room, my husband and I were strolling around the gorgeous hotel and I was taking pictures with my new treasure, now less than a year old, my Canon 5D Mark II, which is now my very, very favorite camera. I had to sell some unused cameras and lenses to be able to buy it, (can you guess that I have wanted it for a very long time) but now, I have it, and I needed to make it work for me as easily as the Canon D60 which I absolutely loved to use, and was now taking beautiful pictures for another family. Then I noticed some very smart parents and grandmother of a young 3 year old playing on one of the toys under the Christmas tree. They were interacting with him and taking some wonderful pictures and memories for their family. So, instinctively, I could not help myself. I had to take a picture! Why? Mostly, because I was so very proud of them!! (more…)

Teaching My Husband Photography

July 13, 2010

In an interesting turn of events my husband has suddenly taken an interest in photography, much to my delight! And, on Sunday last, we went to the baptism of our latest grandchild, and he took the camera and snapped a number of photos, including some of our older children.

Earlier in the week he asked me to travel with him to Kalamazoo, MI to go to “The Air Zoo.” Not a difficult thing to do, because I am also a pilot and am always interested in airplanes. He wanted to learn how to take interesting photos of aircraft at the zoo to use on his website All Things Aviation.

As we were working together he pointed out that I was not much of an instructor, having this deep seated desire to make all of the camera adjustments myself while explaining what I was doing. Oh – this is important – I met my husband when he taught me to fly airplanes! So I begin to realize that teaching my husband photography does not come natural to me! (more…)

Learn About File Formats & Your Camera For Photographing Kids

July 7, 2010

When considering file formats & your camera, let’s start with your camera. No doubt you have figured out by now that you camera saves images in one of the formats we discussed yesterday as soon as we take the picture, but which format?

Actually, this is easy to figure out – most digital cameras save their images in the JPG file format. The JPG file format is pretty good as a compromise between image quality and file size for most people, and in most photographic conditions.

But what you may not realize is that you have a fair amount of control over how aggressively your camera compresses the JPG images. Take a look at your camera – probably on the menu system – and you will find a setting for image quality.

Its well worth pointing out that many digital cameras have a second file format available: TIF file format. Remember, the TIF file format, unlike the JPEG file format, can be used to ensure that the image is absolutely pristine, without any data loss at all. Many digital cameras have a special setting that you can use to store your images in this lossless TIF format. (more…)

What Are Camera File Formats and Why Do You Care?

July 6, 2010

When you take a picture with your digital camera, the camera’s CCD interprets the scene and records a representation of it on the camera’s memory card. This recorded scene is basically a grid, or matrix, of colored pixels. Just how many pixels depends upon the resolution of the camera.

The problem comes in when you want to save all this data to the memory card. Essentially, you want to save this data in a format so that the information will be understandable by software and devices other than the camera itself. In the early days computers stored files in a single file format that was understandable by any computer, but today files are stored in unique file formats that may not be understood by all computers and other devices. (more…)

« Previous Page — Next Page »

• 
  
  

• Categoires

  Select Category Child Photography  (140) Child Photography Podcasts  (1) Display Your Photographs  (52) How To Photograph Children  (43) Kids Photo Contest  (13) Photography Tips  (66) Preserve Your Photographs  (23) Share Your Photographs  (45) Starter Digital Cameras  (29) Uncategorized  (21)

Name: Email: