Child Photography

More Wide Angle Lens Examples

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 09:19:00 +0000

The other week I wrote a piece about using a wide angle lens and the interesting results you can get when using it for photographing children. I have been using the Sigma 12mm-24mm f/4.5-5.6 EX DG Aspherical HSM lens lens a little more recently and wanted to show you some more examples of what a lens like this can do for your photography. I shot these images using an off-camera flash and a reflector, and used a shower curtain as a backdrop....

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Cropping to Ehance Image Appeal

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 05:17:00 +0000

Cropping your photographs effectively during the post-processing stage can significantly enhance the charm and appeal of those images. Depending on what camera-lens combination you use, you may not always be able to compose the image in-camera as you would like to see it framed on your wall. This is especially true for close-up pictures. With some lenses the minimum focus distance just does not allow for getting real close. Cropping to the...

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Just $99: 12GB Sandisk Extreme III CF Memory Card

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:29:00 +0000

Never enough memory! Adorama has a great deal on the SanDisk 12 GB Extreme III Compact Flash Memory Card. Just $99 after mail-in rebate (regular $159.95)! This great deal only lasts until the end of March! The Sandisk Extreme III 8 GB cards have a manufacturer's rebate too, they're just $57.95! I can't believe I just purchased 2 of the 8GB versions just weeks ago for $120 each...ouch!

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Using a Wide Angle Lens

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:01:00 +0000

I recently got myself a wide angle lens. I originally purchased it for shooting interiors and such, but it also serves as an interesting lens to do my child photography with. The specific lens I decided to get is the Sigma 12mm-24mm f/4.5-5.6 EX DG Aspherical HSM lens, which, in combination with the Canon EOS 5D allows for ultra wide shots. Photographing people at such wide angles takes a little getting used to because of the distortion it can...

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Photographing Breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:41:00 +0000

I like to shoot everyday things as they occur, to sort of create mini-documentaries, snapshots from the life of a child in the form of little stories. The result is a series of photographs that can be combined in a multi-photo frame, in a slide show or on the pages of a photo book. What works best for me is to just sit around with my kids and talk to them while I snap away, or just hang out near where the event occurs. Kids can be very engaged ...

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Creative Lighting Techniques

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:04:00 +0000

While photographing (your) children in available light is oftentimes preferable for a more 'natural look', the use of flash is sometimes required. And even if it is not required, adding flash to your photography may sometimes give your images a creative edge. However, if you use a camera's built-in flash, such as the pop-up flash on a Canon Digital Rebel that I used to shoot with, or an integrated flash as found in pocket sized cameras like the...

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Birth Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 23:30:00 +0000

About three months ago, our son Finn was born. We were better prepared for what was to come this time since he was our second child. When his big sister was born two and a half years earlier, everything was new and scary. We were prepared, did birth classes and all, but still, scary. She was a premie (1 month early), and after her birth she had to spend 10 days in the NICU with all kinds of machinery attached. What a ride that was, but it all...

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Early Interaction

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:14:00 +0000

When your child is born all he seems to be doing is eat and sleep, and when he is awake he is just spazzing out, not knowing how to use his arms and legs. He is not paying a whole lot of attention to you as a parent either. He is in his own little world, getting used to his environment with the hundreds of stimuli surrounding him. As a result, photographs of newborns often show the baby in sleeping mode, or depict him staring into to voids of...

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Large Aperture Primes

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 20:52:00 +0000

The other day I was browsing the web for other Child Photography blogs and found photographer Audrey Woulard's blog. I was instantly drawn to most of her images, they're very appealing. They have a certain look and quality to them. I checked the EXIF data for the photographs on that blog and virtually all of them have been shot with a Nikon D200 + 85mm lens at and aperture value of 1.6. Aaaaah, that explains it. I miss my Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC...

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Lensbabies 3G in Child Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 01:04:00 +0000

Before I get started, another reminder - the Children's memorial Hospital's Fall raffle is on! Click below to enter for a chance to win a million dollar dream home (or cash...) and many other fabulous prizes - you're supporting a good cause! You Could Be The Next Instant Millionaire! Enter Now As Tickets Are Limited. I have been a Lensbabies user since version 2.0, and always love to shoot with it. Every time I put it on my camera and start...

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Dare to take the plunge

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 03:27:00 +0000

Before I get started - the Children's memorial Hospital's Fall raffle is on! Click below to enter for a chance to win a dream home and many other prizes - you're supporting a good cause! You Could Be The Next Instant Millionaire! Enter Now As Tickets Are Limited. Anyway, on with today's Child Photography post. A little while ago we got to spend a long weekend in Galveston, TX. I had to be in Houston for work the week before and we decided to...

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Child Photography - Mother and Child

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:35:00 +0000

Today I want to discuss child photography from a different perspective, and we will venture into the gray area between child photography and family photography. I recently took part in a photo contest and one of the assignments was "Creative Documentary: Capture a day in the life of any job ( though not an office job) where you live [up to 5 pictures]" Thinking in line with this report that discusses how full-time mothers should make around...

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Child Photography Links

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 08:30:00 +0000

This post contains some links to Child Photography related material on the web that I think you may find useful or entertaining. A very funny Child Photography cartoon from the 'What the Duck' series. It's hilarious, and I guess all child photographers can relate! This is the first animated 'What the Duck' cartoon from the hand of Aaron Johnson. He started the 'What the Duck' series in 2006 and it has become immensely popular, for obvious...

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Child Photography - Adventures

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:00:00 +0000

Life is full of adventures for a child. The tiniest things can be made into an adventure, like going to the park to feed the ducks, visiting the hospital with mommy and daddy to see your soon to be born little baby brother on the big sonogram screen and checking out the babies in the nursery afterwards, or baking a sculpey snake in the oven. Or, visiting a place like Alliance, Nebraska. When you live in the DFW Metroplex, that is what you would...

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Child Photography - Yes Focus on the Eyes

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 05:45:00 +0000

One of the most often heard tips in portrait photography is to 'make sure the eyes are in focus'. In a studiolighting.net podcast I listened to a while ago, I heard professional photographer Mark Robert Halper talk about how he instantly deletes portrait shots where people's eyes are not in focus [unless there is a specific reason for the out-of-focus eyes]. As a side note, this particular podcast is very interesting; Mark discusses the setup...

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Child Photography - Favorite Foods

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 07:06:00 +0000

One of the goals in photographing my child(-ren pretty soon) is to capture their life as it unfolds all around them. Each day, new discoveries, emotions, adventures and ... favorites. Young kids can be pretty picky when it comes to food and eating out, but every child will eventually start to develop some favoritism towards certain venues. Our daughter currently has a couple of faves; pasta marinara at Cafe Express, carved turkey and corn at...

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Child Photography - Drop that Camera

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:21:00 +0000

I am so comfortable with camera in hand, sometimes it feels like an extension of my body. When I am away on business, I usually do not bring my camera with me and I start missing it. Not long after I get home I can be found in or around the house taking pictures of something... As such I often forget that you can put the camera down, and let someone else be the photographer sometimes. After all, you don't want to end up with pictures of just...

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Expressions in Child Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:30:00 +0000

The other day, I was playing around with my new Lensbaby 3G lens, also experimenting with high ISO (800-1600) on my Canon Digital Rebel (also see previous post). I did not expect too much of it since the Rebel is pretty old in terms of the progress in technology since its release 3 years ago, but I had never tried it before. As was expected, the noise in the images is quite severe, but after the B/W conversion in Photoshop, I do like the...

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DON'T FOCUS ON THE EYES (...sometimes)

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:17:00 +0000

A lot of the Child Photography you see focuses on the child's face, which makes sense, since obviously the face is how we recognize someone, and it usually is nice if we can recognize who is in the picture. Also, our human instincts seemingly automatically have us direct our attention to those big shiny eyes that can do magic in child photography. As a result, one of the more common Child Photography tips you often hear is 'make sure the eyes...

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Child Photography - Enhancing the Image

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:58:00 +0000

In this post I want to show you an example of how you can enhance the appearance of a photograph with some fairly simple post-processing in Photoshop. It's amazing how you can transform an otherwise bland, 'normal' photograph into an eye-catching image that makes people look twice. I currently do not have the resources to purchase funky Photoshop action packages like the popular Kubota Imaging Tools, but there's plenty of stuff you can do...

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Child Photography - Controlling Depth of Field

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:45:00 +0000

Virtually all digital cameras these days come with a bunch of presets or simple full-automatic mode. Some people call the auto mode dummy mode but I would not want to call it that. Auto mode (the default mode for most digital cameras) is handy when you just want to take quick snapshots without having to worry about aperture, shutterspeed or white balance. If you want to take more artistic and visually appealing pictures though, the ability to...

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Child Photography - Bits and Pieces

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 05:04:00 +0000

This post is a collection of short notes of interest. Today I finally had some time to start my other blog, Digital Photography Tools. This blog will discuss the more general topics in digital photography. I already have a lot of ideas for topics to write about, and time permitting I will do so. My first post discusses Google's Picasa photo editing and organizing software, which is available for free from Google as part of the 'Google...

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Child Photography - Black and White Images

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:04:00 +0000

Black and white photographs can have a distinct look and feel that sets them apart from color images. Black and white images can make the subject depicted in the photograph more intense because there are no distracting colors. Is all photography suitable for black and white? No, not really. If color plays an important role in the composition of an image, the color version may be more 'powerful'. It really all depends... Sometimes I create a...

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Child Photography - Camera Position

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 07:15:00 +0000

In one of my earlier posts I talked about eye line level pictures, and why they're good but not always better. Today's child photography example will discuss camera position a little further. When you take pictures of your child, you can do it standing up, with your camera pointed down,and you can kneel or sit to get to the child's eye level. Those kind of are the default positions most people use. But think about this: people lie down every...

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Child Photography Tip - Background Noise II

noreply@blogger.com (Sergej) — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 06:15:00 +0000

In my last post I wrote about the importance of making a habit of checking your viewfinder for 'background noise', objects behind the main subject of your photograph that mess up its composition or appeal. I also mentioned that sometimes as a parent you just keep shooting the good stuff - your children - without paying too much attention to the overall composition. Many times this will result in photographs that are nice, but not nice enough to...

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