Month: January 2012

Try It: Look for Catchlights

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The reflections in my niece’s eyes are called catchlights.  These little reflections give life to your child’s eyes in a portrait.  In studios, the lights are set up to create catchlights.  What do you do if you want to get these reflections in your own photos of your family?

Start by noticing.  Look for times in your home or outside that your child’s eyes are sparkling.  Maybe it is in the shade of your garage or near the windows in your bedroom.  The photo above was taken on the porch of the beach house we stayed in this summer.  Porches are a great place to find enough light for a photo, but not so much that your child squints or there are harsh shadows on their face.  The bright area outside the porch creates nice catchlights.

Even in a place where the light is good, just a slight change in where your child is looking or where you are standing can create or eliminate catchlights.

Once you start noticing catchlights, you’ll see them more and more.  I’ve been watching Downton Abbey.  In nearly every shot, the actors’ eyes are sparkling.  

Capturing them takes some practice, but noticing them is a good place to start.

Try it: look for catchlights. Let me know how it goes.

28|40 Snowfall

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The girls were outside playing in the doorway of their play house.  I was thinking about finding a frame and the door looked like a good one.  I grabbed my camera and went outside.  When I got to them, their play had already ended and the snow had begun.  I asked my big girl to let me take her picture.  

This one made me glad I went out for that other picture. 

15 Minutes

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Clothes, toys, books and once useful items have been carried, one armload at a time, out of of sight and into the basement.  Slowly, the piles grew and finding anything down there became an unpleasant task. At beginning of the new year, I decided to do something about it.  I planned to spend fifteen minutes a day (no more, no less) cleaning in the basement.  I had always seen it as a huge job that required uninterrupted hours that I didn’t have.  What about fifteen minutes? What could I get done in fifteen minutes?

It’s been 26 days now and I’ve donated two loads of clothes and toys, taken at least six bags of trash to the curb and found my daughter’s favorite pajamas that had been missing. I went through the girls’ dressers with them and took out clothes that were too small and had somewhere to put them.  There’s still lots more to do in the basement and all around the house, but now, when I see an overflowing closet I think, “Fifteen minutes.”

I felt the same way when I started editing photos.  There was so much to learn.  I felt like I did the first day I went down to the basement and just looked around wondering where to start.  I felt like I needed uninterrupted time to figure out how to edit my photos.  But, I have a family, and I not only need to take care of them, it’s what I want to do.  Then I took on Project 365 on Flickr and worked on a photo every day, and I did learn.  I didn’t figure it all out on the first day, but by the end of a year, all those minutes did add up. I still don’t feel like I know enough about editing photos.  There’s so much more to learn.  I see plug-ins and actions and layers and I think, “Fifteen minutes.”

Try It: Find a Frame

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Somtimes I have more ideas than I know what to do with.  Sometimes it’s nice if someone just tells me what to do.  Maybe your creative juices are already flowing, but if not, try it.  Find a frame. 

Last week we went to the museum when the girls had a day off. When we arrived, I said, “We need to go to the big room first.  I want to get a photo of Augusta crawling in there.”  They groaned a little, but understood.  I always want to go there.  I’ve shared this photo below before.  It’s the first one I took in the big museum room.

Finding a frame directs the attention of your eyes to the subject, just like putting something in a frame on the wall says, “Look at this.” 

The shape of the frame doesn’t have to be a square or rectangle. 

It could be people.  

This is something you can do with any camera.

Try it.  Find a frame.  Let me know how it goes.

26|40 Gulp

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Finally that very wiggly tooth wiggled free.  It happened while she was eating pizza with me last Saturday afternoon.  I looked at her and said, “You lost your tooth!”  She looked back at me and then felt for the tooth.  It was gone.  We looked in her piece of pizza and on her plate.  Gone.  

She wrote a note to the tooth fairy:

Tooth Fairy, 

I lost my tooth but I swallowed it.  Can you still come?  I am happy.

(She came.)

In a busy house, it’s nice to take a few moments with just one kid to take note of a milestone. 

I took this right before bedtime. I discovered that this is a great time for photographing my kids.  They are very cooperative since it is buying them a little more time before they have to get in bed.  

I used my flash for this one.  Before I got used to using flash, I just put my camera away after dark.  I still love natural light, but I don’t feel limited to it.  I bounced the flash off the ceiling in the bedroom.  I’ll get one of the girls to take a photo of me doing this sometime soon.