How & Where To Choose A Leather Photo Album

May 4, 2012

Some of the most attractive and safest photo albums are a leather photo album that consists of acid free archival material in both the album cover and the album pages.  This post is the last in a series that I have written on the best and safest ways to store your precious images of your children and grand children.  For either a refresher or a complete understanding of this subject, you may want to reference these two previous posts by clicking on these titles:

1. How To Store Pictures Of Your Children
2. Do You Need A Photobox To Store Your Pictures?

Although photo storage may not be as exciting a subject as those in some of my other posts, this information is still is very important to fulfilling the complete picture of enjoying your personal photography involvement with your children.

When I was a young girl, many times we would go to my grand parents for a Sunday dinner  which almost always consisted of my Grandma’s fried chicken, homemade biscuits, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry jello relish, and her own homemade chicken noodles.  I even remember her rolling out the egg noodles in her country kitchen and then hanging them on a linen towel over the back of a kitchen chair to dry the Saturday before.  And to top it off, she raised the chickens and the eggs, and the potatoes had been grown in her garden.  Any milk came from their cows; not much was store bought in those days.  I sometimes think that kids today are missing a lot by not seeing all of this happen. Read more

Have You Thought Of A Photo As Canvas Art For A Gift?

February 21, 2012

A Photo As Canvas Art For Mom At Christmas

Many years ago, I recognized even as a child that things in our family were happening and changing all around us and that no one in my immediate family was recording these changes in the form of images. So I decided that there were some of these happenings that were too important to let get away.

At that time I could have never even dreamed of the possibility of someday giving a photo as canvas art to my mother as a gift. The only pictures on canvas we were exposed to were those by an artist who painted the images by hand in watercolor or oil mediums. And, during those days, I am convinced that my parents  would have considered photos on canvas as a gift something way too extravagant. Read more

Why A Starter Digital Camera Kit Can Be Your Best Choice

February 4, 2012

A Starter Digital Camera Kit Will Easily Provide Everything You Need.

A starter digital camera kit can be the best choice for an extremely busy parent or grand parent today. If you are a grand parent today, and your grand child lives nearby, you probably know the joys of grand parenting!  You are probably also aware that you have even more limited time to get those very special pictures of your grand baby as he or she grows up than you did with your own children.  Because your access to them is much more limited, and even if it isn’t, you find that because you are older, taking care of them requires even more energy than it used to.  That is why a starter digital Camera Kit can be your best choice.  The camera in the kit is usually fairly light and easy to handle.  And, you get all of the basics in one package and don’t have to spend a lot of time shopping around to figure out just what you need and don’t need.

Our daughter and her former husband have let us have our grand daughter every other wednesday since she was born. Actually, we even had her every week for the first six months of her life, that is until we found out that her parents were getting a divorce.  Then, her father did not want us to take her on “his” wednesday, because he still had to pay for day care even when she was with us. Read more

Photos On Canvas Of Your Children

February 3, 2012

Photos on Canvas are a long-lasting way to show off your photo. While shopping, I came across a do it yourself kit for putting your photos on canvas. This got me to thinking about all the photos I could display in a whole new way. You can have a professional make up the canvas or you can go the do it yourself route.

The Professional Way

Oh how easy it is to upload your photos to a canvas photo website and let the professionals handle the rest. You do have to make a couple of choices before they get to work. You need to research what form of ink they use. Make sure it is archival grade ink. Most sites offer framed and unframed photos on canvas. One option is to get the canvas only or have the canvas stretched over artist stretch bars for a tight mount. Stretch bars also come in different thickness check your website for the sizes they offer. You can usually decorate the outside of the frame mount with the image wrapping around the mount or your chose of color. Once you choose the thickness of your mount then you can put a frame around the canvas. Every website differs as to what they are willing to do to a photo and at what price. They can enhance the picture but remember how good the picture looks is based on what it started as. You can also request touch ups for blemishes, red eye, whitened teeth or have objects removed from the photo. Do you want your photo in color, black and white or sepia? Read more

Why The Rule of Thirds Matters In Photographing Children

June 1, 2010

When I was young I took lots and lots of photographs of my younger siblings, and quite without realizing it I have intuitively understood why the rule of thirds matters. When the prints would come back and I would show the images to my family they would always remark “My, that camera takes the best pictures!”

In point of fact, applying the rule of thirds in your knowledge of photography composition is probably one of the most important photography tips that you can be in possession of as someone who take pictures of your children or grand children.  Why? Because it will give you a lot of enjoyment, and take you to the next step of being able to make some of your best photos as canvas art.  You can then have the joy of  hanging this canvas art on the walls of your own home, or to even be able to give them as a very special gift to a loved one to cherish!

Composition Is What Will Make Your Photographs Interesting. .

I guess my family never understood that it was the way the photographer composed the picture that made it so interesting. Almost without thinking I would engage the the rule of thirds when snapping my photos, and as I look back on those early photographs I can see how I just naturally did that.  Then one day, as an adult many years later, it dawned on me. “It wasn’t the camera that took the great pictures.  It was me!”  Wow!

An example of proper use of the rule of thirds can be seen in the photograph on the above  right with two young children looking for bees in a flower patch.

Notice how the heads of the children are at the corner intersection of the left hand vertical line and lower horizontal line that we saw in the image in our earlier post on the rule of thirds.

Well, my husband is a pilot, and likes to photograph things aviation. But when it comes to having a natural ability to employ the rule of thirds, he is completely devoid of it being natural. So, I have been working with him to think about the composition of his photographs before he takes them.

Because it isn’t natural he struggles a bit, but over time I can see an improvement in the quality of his photographs. They are becoming more interesting, and it seems to be easier for him to think about the composition of his photographs before he takes them.

And if you don’t have the natural “eye” for composition, not to worry. Just be aware of the rule of thirds, imagine those crossing lines in the viewfinder of your camera, and soon enough it will become second nature.

Remember, keep taking lots and lots of photographs of your kids. You will be glad you did!

ps: Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter “Real Kids Photography” here!

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