Bathing Beauties

I’ve read from at least two or three professional photographers that it’s a good idea to take portraits in the bathtub.  Not necessarily literally bathing – just surrounded by the white tile, the white tub and as much natural light as you can get.  In my case, I actually had to let them bathe in order to keep them occupied to test this.  I don’t know what it is, but I just love to see my babies all wet.  Their fresh clean faces, their wet hair, the eyelashes all smooshed together.  I love it!  So, tonight I decided to attempt to get some pictures in the bathtub before sunset with natural light coming in the big window above the tub.  These are four of my five favorites.  I can’t put the fifth one on the blog, but suffice it to say it’s innocent and sweet and it will be framed and on display in the privacy of my bathroom.

All of these are ROOC.  1/30 to 1/60,  f 5.6, 1600 ISO

Click on each individually to see them larger and much more clearly. 

Tame the Toddler

If you seem to be having difficulty getting a picture of your toddler when he is still, here is a suggestion for you.  As the sun is getting ready to set, strap your beloved child into the car seat and go for a drive.  Drive around looking for a good spot where the setting sun casts a glow on your child that illuminates him beautifully.  Snap pictures from the front seat.  Play peek-a-boo… let him look out the window at something that interests him… make a game of it.  Snap pictures while sitting at red lights when he isn’t paying you any attention and then find a place to park the car for an impromptu photo session.  All the while, making sure that the light that is cast on your sweetie is glowing.  Here is an example of a recent session with my own toddler.

Program Mode

I’ve had a grand weekend!  I was reading this post on Friday.  That night I sat down with my camera manual to study up on P mode.  What a fantastic mode to shoot in!  It’s like automatic with the ability to control the things you want to control.  While I was studying my manual, I found out how to pick my point of automatic focus (my camera has 7 points to pick from and it’s frustrated me in the past that the one I would pick is not the one it picked) AND I found out how to force the pop-up flash to use it for fill flash in a pinch.  Highly productive!

I’ve had a great weekend experimenting with Program mode, selective AF points and fill flash.  I believe I’ve taken approximately 550 pictures and I’m delighted with the results. 

So, here’s your assignment if you’re following along with me trying to learn photography.  Find your manual and study up on Program Mode.  Shoot in that mode for at least two days and see what your results are.  Let me know if you love it as much as I do! 

Because I can’t close a post without a picture …  here is one I took of my daughter at a birthday party.  This picture is ROOC.  Love those eyes!  {sigh}

Experiments with Flash

I found a new blog that I’m enjoying.  Jenny is doing a 365 project where she takes a picture a day and posts it.  As I was exploring her work, I noticed that she makes notes after each photo about the stats of the camera.  I also noticed that she owns a Speedlite 430EX just like me.  She uses it for a number of her photographs and it turns out – they look good!  I guess flash isn’t evil if you know how to use it. 

This made me conduct an experiment a few minutes ago.  Here is a picture of my dog with no flash at all.

Doesn’t exactly capture any features, eh?  Now, here is one with my Speedlite set at a 45 degree angle.

You can see her now, right?  It doesn’t kill the mood or give too harsh of a light.  You can even still see the shadow in front of her from the patio door with the natural light coming in behind her.  Just enough light added to the scene.

For the last shot, I removed the Speedlite and used the on-camera pop-up flash.

(Naturally, a kid entered the kitchen and the dog popped up from her position – but you still get the idea.)  See how the on-camera pop-up flash gave a little too much light to her?

In the event you don’t have a Speedlite and don’t know what I’m talking about by setting it at 45 degree angle, I removed it and set it on it’s stand to show you.

It looks like I have something else to practice and get good at.  Thanks for following along!

Low Light

Yesterday I had the chance to go to a local spa for a massage.  Wow!  The environment around me really made the massage seem that much more luxurious.  Here is a shot of the locker room.

They also had a whirlpool, sauna and steamroom available for your relaxation after the massage was complete.  They were just as luxurious looking.

Here is the room I waited in to be called back for my treatment.

That picture doesn’t do justice to the room.  The hues and textures were so rich, I just wanted to walk around and touch everything! 

The beverage cart-

I tried several different times to get a neat DOF shot or some other artsy type of shot of that row of tea tins on the shelf.  I couldn’t hold my camera steady enough in such low light to get a good shot.  I tried bracing myself against a wall, the door, everything and they all came out blurry.  A flash would have killed the mood so I will have to live without my artsy tea shot.  Bummer.

And finally, despite the fact that it was 90 degrees outside, they had a lovely little fire going in the room for the guests to relax and gaze into.

Since all the guests in this room are generally wearing nothing but a bathrobe, I suppose it’s okay to have it on the warmer side.  The picture makes it look larger than it was.  If you look in the second picture, you’ll see a rectangular cutout in the wall, that is where the fire place is.   

In case anyone is wondering, I had the room all to myself while I was there so no one saw me photographing it like a nut.  I had almost as much fun photographing my environment as I did getting my massage.  Almost. 

It was a fun experiment at attempting to capture photographs in ultra low light and have them still be in focus with no flash.  I recommend taking your camera with you and searching out a low light scene that you can experiment with as well.  You have to get creative and think out of the box a little but it’s worth it.  Good luck! 

Be Positive

This past Saturday, I took my family for an annual photo.  We went to my usual favorite cheap place – JC Penney portrait studio.  Yes, I know some photographers are going to think that is a horrible offense.  In my defense, I’ve been going to this particular studio for about 5.5 years.  Since the birth of my first born child – before I could afford much more than that.  They had not one but TWO photographers in this studio who ACTUALLY knew what they were doing.  Alas, they have both moved on. 

This weekend, I became painfully aware of why people despise the family portrait session.  When I made the appointment, I told them it was for a family of five and it included a five year old, a three year old and a two year old.  Read between the lines and get prepared people.  We arrived early to get everyone dressed in our photo-attire.  My dear husband allowed me to dress our three children first and then he headed to the bathroom to change into his pre-directed-outfit-of-my-choosing.  What a sport.  So, our little photographer chick calls us back into the studio.  We are still 15 minutes ahead of our appointment at this time, mind you, yet she has the nerve to be all sighs and such that we are waiting on my husband.  I suggest that we shoot the picture of my currently-happy-two-year-old that I also want to get while we wait.  She retorts with, "I’ve already broken down my table."  Uhhh…. okay….

My sweetheart comes in and we all take our positions.  Chickeypie continues with her sighs and such and then begins to lose patience with our three small children as she snapped the very first photograph.  Now, I would fess up if my children were being devil children.  I can be honest about it when they are being turds.  On this day, they were being pretty normal and generally well behaved.  No one was running out of the studio.  No one was pulling the hair of another.  None of that or anything even remotely like that.  An occasional hand was out of place or a mouth was showing off a tongue but that’s about it.  Then she begins making statements like, "I sure wish you’d all look at me." and "I sure wish we could move along."  Uhhh…. excuse me?!  Her disposition was making my husband stressed.  So then he would make a comment to our children in a harsher than usual tone admonishing them to behave.  None of this behavior was encouraging smiles.  At the end of the family portrait, she took all of 30 seconds to set up the table for the aforementioned and requested shot of my two year old.  She took all of three pictures before he was D.O.N.E with the whole scene.  None were particularly noteworthy.  At the end of it all, she seemed displeased that I only ordered a few sheets of the ONE decent family shot (which was the very first one, by the way) and only 2 sheets of the ONE half-way decent shot of my two year old. 

Here is the lesson in all of this.  If you want to be a photographer, you need to be positive in the face of a family with small children.  Remember that your goal is happy people in your picture, not freshly admonished and tortured family members.  Remember that families and small children are going to likely be the bread and butter of your business – unless you do weddings.  And even then you will need to be positive in the face of stress.

Bottom line – Be positive.  Be ready when the smiles happen.  Be quick when toddlers are involved.

I think in the future, I might be better off setting up a tripod with a timer for about 100 shots to get one just as good as what I got at that studio. 

Happy Memorial Day!

When I was coming back into my neighborhood after running an errand earlier today, I realized how blessed I am to live in a town that acknowledges Memorial Day with public displays.  There were rows of flags in the ground leading into my neighborhood and again on a corner near the entrance.  I thought it was a nice opportunity to pull out my camera and practice.  This is one of my favorite shots.  Although it wasn’t entirely planned, I thought it was nice when my daughter wandered into the frame to hunt for acorns on the sidewalk.

When I came home and started to play with it, I upped the contrast to 51 and cropped it a little bit. 

Happy Memorial Day!

A Boy and His Truck

While I was visiting my parents, I thought it would be a nice opportunity to try to get a portrait of my middle child.  Once upon a time, my father made beautiful wood crafts.  He has this one wooden truck that he made by his own hand.  From start to finish.  By that, I don’t mean he used a kit… I mean he had blocks of wood to start and this truck when he was finished.  He is amazingly talented if you ask me.

I thought it would make a lovely and meaningful prop in my portrait of my boy.  Since my father hasn’t relinquished the truck to any of his eleven grandchildren yet, I thought I’d at least get it in a photo just in case it doesn’t end up in my household.

I dressed my sweet boy in some simple but nice looking clothes and took him to the front porch.  My mother has some nice wicker furniture out there, the brick house is a nice textural back drop and there is shade but lots of natural light.  Sounds like a photographer’s dream, right?  Well, I made a few mistakes and I’d like to share.

Can you see how crisp and perfect the chair looks?  Even the brick looks like it’s in focus.  Yet the fair skin of my boy along with his clothes appears to be slightly out of focus or over exposed or something.  I’m not exactly sure what happened here but I’m going to take a guess.  I think that my camera used it’s "brain" to make sure that the majority of the portrait was properly exposed and thus the chair and the wall were what it focused on instead of my subject.  When I was taking this photograph, I allowed lots of space in order to allow some cropping room.  I think that may have been my error.

Now this second picture has him in focus, the chair mostly in focus and the wall behind him slightly blurred.  I let my camera make the decisions and this is what it gave me.  A nice portrait, but my heirloom prop is not in this one.  Still, it’s nice.

For this one… I used my handy dandy new (fake) reflector to bounce some light back into his face.  I had it off to the left of the photo under his right foot.  I didn’t have it angled quite perfectly because you can see the shadow on his right eye socket.  But still, his right cheek wouldn’t be illuminated at all if I hadn’t used the reflector.  I’m happy to be practicing.  Someday, I’ll master all this stuff.  At least it’s getting better.

No reflector here but it’s still my favorite – I think.  I  like it.  I wish the truck was more visible in it’s detail.  The reflector would have helped with that.  Still, there is something about it that makes me happy.  What do you think?

 

Storm Light

In my books, they are always talking about light.  Study light… observe light… use the light.  Last night at 8PM it was time to put my children to bed but I looked out and saw this gorgeous light – the kind you see right before a storm.  All of the pictures here are ROOC.  (Right out of Camera)

Isn’t that gorgeous?  Everything was aglow!  So I talked my daughter into posing for me.  She was delighted to delay bedtime a few more minutes and gladly obliged.  I took many shots but here are a couple of my favorites.  I was shooting in Aperture Priority with the lowest F stop I could.  I should have just gone with automatic with no flash.  A lot of them were fuzzy, but I suppose that is what practicing is all about.  Live and learn.

The thing I like about this last one is the way her face is crisp and clear yet everything around her goes a little soft and fuzzy.  I didn’t do that on purpose, but I think the effect is cool.  I can only guess that it happened because I had it set at a lower f stop number (5.6) and that is what caused it.

I will be away from my blog for awhile.  I’m taking my computer in to get fixed and I don’t know how long I’ll be without it.  I’ll try to blog with someone else’s computer while mine is in the shop but I can make no guarantees.  Have a happy Mother’s Day! 

Depth of Field – Aperture – F stops

Yep.  It’s all sorta the same thing.  But most books and photographers talk about it in a way that confuses me.  A wide open aperture is also a large aperture.  A large aperture has a low F stop number.  Then authors will go on to discuss "large" or "small" apertures and "large" or "small" F stops and they speak in a manner that makes the reader wonder if the concept they have just learned is confused in her head somehow.  I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to make a connection in my brain that makes sense to me.  Today, I got it.

A higher F stop number = a larger depth of field

A lower F stop number = a smaller depth of field

Seems simple enough when said like that, doesn’t it?!  Why couldn’t someone have just said that?  It would have made my life a lot easier.  I guess we’re all different and learn in different ways.  Who knows, perhaps my little equation won’t work for anyone else.

But better than the words, I have an example for you.

This was shot at F20.  According to our equation, a higher F number equals a larger depth of field.  In the picture above, notice how the table pattern is discernible to your eye.  Also, the trees beyond the subject being photographed are mostly crisp and clear.

This second picture was shot at F5.  According to our equation, a lower F stop equals a smaller depth of field.  Notice how the pattern on the table is much less discernible and the trees behind the subject are less clear?  Only the subject is in focus.

Okay, now I’m going to rotate the pictures to a vertical position and put them right next to each other so you can compare them a lot easier. Left – F20.  Right – F5.

You can take the creative control on your shot by setting your camera to Aperture Priority.  On my camera, that is AV mode.  Another method of doing essentially the same thing (I’m told) is to set your camera to landscape (usually a mountain scene on your dial) for a larger depth of field or setting it to portrait mode (usually a profile of a face on your dial) for a smaller depth of field.   The difference is that the camera will pick exactly which aperture will be used for the shot so you will likely get the shot you want but you might not get it to the exact degree that you had hoped.

Hopefully someone will find this useful.  If not, they say the best way to learn something yourself is to learn it and then re-teach it.  So, if nothing else, I’ve cemented this concept in my brain a little better.  Thanks for reading.