Photographing your baby-Naturally and Beautifully

Hi everyone and happy Tuesday! I hope you all had a great weekend and if you are somewhere in the world where the weather is starting to look like Spring then I hope you got a lil’ sunshine! I got to spend time outdoors with my kiddos and I do have to say that we are all in better moods when we get out of the house and frolic a bit. Speaking of kiddos…as a Mom I am blown away by how many picture perfect and amazingly adorable moments that pop up during the average day to day happenings. It seems like from the moment you bring your little one home from the hospital you secretly wish you had a photographer living in your  closet and every time something cute happened they would pop out and take photos and then would pop back in when nap time came around! I also know that having a professional photographer take photos of your family is a treat that most families can only afford once or maybe twice a year. I have based my pricing structure around this fact and kept myself affordable and accessible to all. But for the folks out there who want to try to photograph their babies by themselves, below are some tips to help you get started…enjoy 🙂

Camera and lens: You can find a really great new camera for not too much money these days. Or you can even find a great used camera for even cheaper. I still have my 1st digital camera a Canon EOS 20D and it works great for snapshots in automatic mode or you can get intricate and use it in full manual mode. B and H Photo and Video is an amazing online camera store that has an extensive used section as well as new. My lens of choice when photographing kids of all ages is my Canon 50mm 1.8. I am obsessed with the lens and it is so affordable! It stops down enough that you can photograph in low light as well as focus on those great details like the tiny hands of a newborn 🙂

Light: One thing that drives me absolutely bananas is when I see a photographer using flash when they don’t need it. I am a huge, huge advocate of natural light and I use it in 95% of my work. What a lot of people don’t realize is that you can find beautiful light everywhere, you just have to know where to look. When I am photographing babies, especially newborns, it is almost always done at the childs home. So pretty much all of my work is done either in an open doorway or next to a window. You live in your house everyday so you will know where the best light is and when. The key to using window light is to make sure the light is not direct light (bright sunlight shining directly into the open space) because then it will be too harsh. Look for soft, indirect light and make it is even light across your subject. And for using doorways, make sure you bring your subject to just before the opening of the doorway and also be aware of what color the ground is outside of the door. If you have green grass or another strange color you may get that color reflecting onto your subject, so you should hope for cement on the other side of that door or if you don’t have it you can put a white sheet down and it will act as a big, beautiful reflector.

Atmosphere: Babies and children are very intuitive. They feel different energies and when the atmosphere around them or the people around them are uncomfortable, they can feel it and they will react to it. Your baby will probably be a great model for you because you are her comfort zone but if you feel like she is acting super fussy or just not in the mood to take photos then take a little break and try again later. And keep the room really warm since you will probably be photographing them with just a diaper for a few shots.

Comforts: I love using comfortable, knit blankets when photographing babies. They love being in just a diaper and swaddled very tightly in a warm blankie. Then if they fall asleep you can easily prop them (safely!) against the arm of chair or lay them down on a bed and you can photograph away!

Focus on the Details: Since newborns and babies only have those tiny hands and feet for a short amount of time, it’s great to get some shots of those details! This is when that  lens comes in handy! Here’s a tip, if you newborn is awake when you are trying to photograph their hands or feet and they are squirming around, ask your hubby to hold the babies feet in his hands or have the baby wrap his or hand around your husbands… which leads me to scale.

Scale: Showing scale is a great way to capture these memories. Ask your husband to cradle the baby in his big arms or cradle the babies head in his hands. Years later you will be in awe of how teeny your baby once was!

I hope these tips are of help to anyone out there looking to capture some beautiful photos of their babies and if you don’t feel like doing it by yourself, I’m only an email away 😉

For The Love of Film: Take One

Hello friends! Happy Presidents Day 🙂 and please excuse my absence last week. I had one sick kiddy and another who got his 4 month shots…not so fun! But I’m back and so, so excited for this blog post. I have been waiting to start posting some film work and I can finally start sharing some of my ventures with you. Do you ever have something that just tugs at your soul? Something you love so much and you don’t know why but it makes you feel so deeply and evokes so many different emotions for you that it can be over whelming at times? That is what film does for me. A little background on me so that you know where I am coming from. I started doing photography in high school as a hobby and back then digital cameras weren’t even close to existing. So I fell in love with black and white film, red lights in the darkroom and the smell of developer and fixer. I processed my own film, printed my own images and my love affair began. I went to college where I continued to use film in all of my work and in my last semester of college I started interning at a high-end wedding and portrait studio. They used all digital equipment and alas, my love affair with film ended and I switched over to digital. And don’t get me wrong, digital photography is a wonderful medium and there are so many perks and pluses that you just don’t get with film but in the past year a transition in my career and in myself has started to happen and I am finding myself drawn back to film more and more everyday. I have recently  fallen in love with the work of a few very special photographers and when I first found them I wondered, what is it that is drawing me to their work other than the fact that it is photographically beautiful. And 8 times out of 10 it turned that the photographers whose work I was admiring were shooting film. One of these photographers is the ever so talented and lovely Tanja Lippert . Seriously if you have never heard of her, please check her out. I  had the chance to take her “Lightwalk” workshop last year and it changed the way I look at everything. After discovering these photographers and their work I decided to purchase a medium format film camera (Contax 645!) which I am still working on buying all of the pieces for. But while I save up enough money to buy the rest of it I have started shooting a camera that my Grandma gave me. An old Pentax K1000 35mm camera. I’ve had it lying around for years and when we moved I found it in storage, got it cleaned and fixed and picked up some film. The process of starting to shoot film again has made me realize why we as a whole are such an impatient nation of people. The time, dedication and patience it used to take to do things just does not exist anymore because everything happens instantly for us. Computers load web pages in seconds, we can email and text and get automatic responses and we can take photos on digital cameras and see the results right away. This whole process has given me a new outlook on being a photographer back before digital existed and it is something I never thought about when I was shooting film because I didn’t know any different! The dedication it took was incredible and to all of the photographers these days who shoot 100% film, you are all amazing! I am so excited for this upcoming year, to be able to incorporate film into my weddings, engagements and portrait sessions and to give my clients a mix of film and digital imagery that compliments each other and captures the true and beautiful love that they share! Below are some images from my 1st roll shot with my Pentax K1000, Film was Kodak Tri X 400 Speed. Enjoy and stay tuned for more to come in my ” For The Love of Film” blog posts!

Your Senior Session-What To Expect?

I remember my Senior year of high school…it was filled with excitement and wonder, it felt like everyday there was an activity or a reason to celebrate. I felt like the bond with my friends was the strongest it had ever been. What I don’t remember is studying all that much though 😉 It’s ok, I still graduated and I also took senior portraits, which I still have framed and I look at them from time to time and reminisce on those fun times. I was lucky enough to have a photographer that wanted to take portraits that would show my personality and reflect who I really was at that time. I believe that is the true essence of a wonderful portrait and I love being able to do the same for my seniors! Read below for some tips and answers to frequently asked questions…enjoy!

 

1. Q: When should I schedule my Senior Portrait Session? A: Anytime during your Senior year is a good time to schedule your session. Most Seniors wait until the Spring in order to be sure that the weather is nice. But Autumn sessions are always beautiful as well!

2. Q: What can I expect at our session? A: Senior sessions are done at any two locations of your choice. I like to spend some time before the shoot just chatting and loosening up. My style is always laid back and easy-going. I will direct you when needed but mostly we will be just having fun and hanging out and I will shoot as we go. I also suggest to Seniors that if you have a talent/hobby or interest, this is a great time to document it. Feel free to bring along any musical instruments, books, a record collection or anything else that you are into.

3. Q: How long will my session last? A: Senior sessions are anywhere from 2 – 2.5 hours long. This gives time for location and wardrobe changes.

4. Q: After our session how long will it be until I receive my photos? A: You will have your images edited and up in your gallery within 4 weeks of our session. Your disk will be sent out at this time as well.

5. Q: Any other tips or suggestions to help me prepare for my session: A: Get lots of rest the night before. Eat something before we start our session or you can bring snacks as well. And remember that we are here to have fun and get some great portraits of you!and  your beautiful self! A photo shoot is also a great excuse to have your make up professionally done and get a fun mani/pedi ;)And for wardrobe tips, please have a look at this Pinterest board created specifically for Senior Sessions!

Photography is Like Singing

Hello friends…I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, aside from the 49er’s losing, it was a fun and eventful one around our house! Our little girl turned 3 and we had a birthday party extravaganza….princess themed of course 🙂 I’m excited for this weeks blog post as it is a metaphor that I think might help others if you are someone who gets your feelings hurt if your work is every criticized by other photographers or if you are wondering why your not booking as many clients as you feel you may deserve to be. I spend a lot of time thinking about my work and how it is viewed by others. What makes one client decide that you are a good fit to photograph their wedding or portraits but another decided that you are not. I think there is a deeper psychology to it then just the obvious. After beating myself up and thinking over and over again how I could appeal to the masses I came to the realization that maybe that is not whats in the cards for me. At least not right now. And then it hit me…photography is just like singing, which is something that I also love to do, just for fun, every photographer has their own unique voice. It may not appeal to everyone. One person may hear your singing and hate it but the person right next to them may hear it and think it is the most beautiful thing that they have ever heard. And it’s okay. Your voice is yours and yours only. No one else can sing like you. If you are passionate about what you do and you are doing it for the right reasons, then there is so much beauty in that and it will always show through in your images and strike someones cord. So my advice to myself and to anyone out there that is learning to find their voice and their vision in this world, is to keep searching, keep dreaming, keep practicing and soaking up the beauty around you, keep learning and keep giving and never let anyone tell you that your voice is not beautiful…