some non-photo informational goodness for you today!

digital photo storage

at portrait day this past weekend, i had a lot of conversations about how digital cameras have changed how we store photos.  gone are the days of picking up a sleeve of 24 or 36 4×6 prints from the one hour photo shop, tossing the ones you don’t want and keeping the ones you do.  (i still have shoeboxes full of prints in my basement, they’ve followed me through three cities and countless apartments!)

these days, everything sits on our hard drive or worse, on our camera.  the size of the memory cards makes it easy to keep hundreds of photos on the card without ever downloading them to our computers.  and so very often, just being able to flip through the camera or through the files on the computer is enough – we see them and enjoy them and marvel at how much our babies have grown and then we go about our days.

but what happens when we lose our camera on vacation?  or when our hard drive fails at home?  YEARS of memories – gone.  let’s talk about how to avoid that.  the obvious answer?  back it up!

if you are a mac person, the solution is simple:  apple’s time machine.  it’s a free software that comes with macs and it makes backing up your entire system incredibly easy.  just plug in an empty external harddrive and the software will take care of the rest.   if you’re not a mac person, get yourself to the apple store!  or just keep reading

a cheap and easy option is to buy a big stack of blank DVDs and start copying your photos and videos (and any other important documents).  make TWO copies of everything and keep one set at the office or a family member’s house.  this is essential because DVDs can fail AND in the case of disaster (fire, earthquake, etc), you have a copy offsite.   if you go this route, make sure to backup frequently and check the DVDs yearly to make sure they’re still working.

a similar method is investing in a high quality external hard drive (i like the western digital passports, available at amazon.com) and manually copying your files to the external for safekeeping.  this is far less putzy than keeping track of numerous dvds BUT external drives are just as susceptible to failure as our main drives.  plus, they’re small and can easily fall behind desks and crash, not that i know anything about that.  la la la.

a third method that has gained popularity in recent years is the online backup system.  websites like carbonite.com and mozy.com will automatically upload your entire hard drive (or just the folders you want) to their servers.  the upside is that they’re WAY offsite! the down side is that the initial backup can take weeks, plus there’s the privacy factor – uploading your personal files to someone else’s server.

printing your photos

beyond backing up our photos, how about we start printing some out?  if the idea of having shoeboxes of 4x6s in your basement doesn’t appeal to you (but oh my gosh are they fun to flip through on a rainy afternoon!), then how about some photo albums?  i’m a big fan of blurb.com for books – they’re good enough quality with a reasonable pricetag but what i LOVE is the software that comes with it – you download the software, point it to a folder of images, and voila, all of your photos auto-populate the book.  you can move things around, add captions, make some bigger, make some smaller, but the thing is, it’s EASY.  make one for each year  or if a yearly book would weigh 50 pounds, make one for each season, or each kid, or however you want to organize them.   the kids will LOVE looking through them, now and for years to come.

for other prints and gifts, i’ve always loved mpix.com.  the quality is great and the price is right, plus they have a lot of fun new products, including albums, accordions, magnets, stickers, etc.  great for gift giving!

i hope this has been helpful! just call or email with questions, i’m happy to help as best as i can.

to read about the aspects of photography that go beyond the technical skills, visit st. louis and dc photographer lauri baker!

Hey what’s that? Is it Portrait Day Registration? Oh yeah.

Mark your calendars for April 20-22, 2012!

Register today for the Spring 2012 Portrait Day. Enjoy a complimentary mini session (kids only!). Sessions are short but result in 5-10 pretty awesome images of those amazing kids of yours. Your images will be available for online ordering within a week of your session and any ordered prints or files will be delivered in time for Mother’s Day gift giving.
What are you waiting for?! Register now! Can’t wait to see you!

oh how i love newborns. i was so lucky to photograph this little dude and his amazing parents before they left milwaukee for warmer weather!

hey everyone! thank you for tuning in this morning for my segment on milwaukee’s fox 6 morning show, WakeUp!  i had a great time chatting with nicole about newborn photography and was happy to share six tips for photographing your own baby.  for those who missed it, here is a quick overview of the tips:

1. let there be light! turn OFF that flash – please oh please, turn off the flash.  don’t know how? check your manual! lost your manual? google it.  move your subject to the biggest window you can find and let the natural light do it’s job.  on camera flash creates red eyes and flat lighting, not pretty at all.

2. angle.  get down on baby’s level and shoot at eye level.

3. simplify!  for super sweet shots that show of your beautiful baby, ditch the props.  grab a solid onsie and a plain blanket and shoot away.  for sitting babies or older kids, clear the background of any clutter or objects that will take focus away from your subject.

4. timing.  first thing in the morning right after a good feed.  baby’s fresh, mama’s rested (?), daddy’s patient, siblings have not yet driven you crazy.  and the light is pretty!

5. jump in! don’t forget to hand the camera to your spouse, friend, three year old, neighbor…. anyone.  be in the photos, too.  we are our own worst critic (believe me, i GET this – i just had to watch myself on television!) and we’re not always feeling and looking our best right after giving birth, but you’ll want these later.  do it for your future self, do it for your kids.

6. print! how many of us have loads of photos sitting on our cameras, our harddrives, our cell phones?  well hard drives fail! cell phones drop in toilets (not that i have ANY experience with this), cameras are lost.  print the photos! my all-time favorite way to document and store images is to print off photo books at mpix.com — just upload a year’s worth, a month’s worth, whatever, and let the software do the work.   use the code fox6 for free shipping on ANY mpix order of $25 or more between now and 2/14/2012.

and of course i’m here to photograph your family as well. 

Wanna learn my six top tips for photographing your own gorgeous baby?  Tune into Fox 6 WakeUp tomorrow where I will join Nicole Koglin for WakeUp’s Baby Week.  I’ll be on at 8:15!

I’m excited and flattered (and crazy nervous) and I hope you’ll tune in!

well hello there!  it’s been awhile, hasn’t it?  when i wrote the most recent blog carousel post, i noticed that this blog hadn’t been updated in over two months!  that’s especially crazy because i have no less than one zillion sessions that i’m dying to post.

2012 started off with a(nother) new studio location.  i know, right?   i just think of it as my tour of milwaukee’s third ward studio spaces.  you’ll love it, though, and as soon as you see it, you’ll see why i moved again so quickly.  it’s bright and airy and bright and peaceful and did i mention bright? the window light, oh how i missed that.  nine HUGE windows bring in glorious natural light.  cream city brick, funky stained concrete, really really awesome.  as soon as the prints are up on the wall, i’ll post some photos for you.

let’s start with images from last fall’s portrait day, since i get the most requests to post these  (and yes, i will get them up on facebook for you guys, too!).  aren’t they FUN?  i love portrait day, it’s such a great way to grab a few really awesome photographs of your kids in between regular sessions.

are you ready for a LOT of photos?  they may take a bit to load!

i think any professional photographer would agree that publicly posting their random daily snapshots can be a little bit of a nerve wracking experience.  this month’s theme for our blog carousel is “alternative cameras” and while i had big plans of pulling out one of my medium format cameras, or at least my trusty little point-n-shoot, that just never happened because the truth of the matter is, i use my iphone to document just about everything in our day to day lives.

a walk to the park on the last dry day of winter (right before milwaukee saw it’s first snow of the season).  we found a nest of some sort, and my girls invented some very elaborate game involving sticks, counting down and hiding.

a shot of rachel and me – she’s 7 now, can you believe it?   and two of ellie’s many faces – i love her face so much, i want to eat it up!

rachel in the snow, trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue.  my girls are lucky to have a daddy born and raised in wisconsin because i prefer sit in a warm house and watch the snow play from the window!  (edited with snapseed – an iphone app that i love love love – you can very quickly and easily edit any photo taken with your iphone.  it’s great!)

to see another photographers take on the alternative cameras theme, check out san francisco baby, kids and family photographer Alpana Aras- she’s amazing!

can believe this little dude is all grown up?  here he was back in april 2007

and look at him now!  (and this little one, too – here she was just a couple of years ago!)

i met these kiddos on one of the last leafy fall days in chicago.  milwaukee’s leaves had already mostly fallen, so i was so happy to drive through this neighborhood and see the amazing colors!