It took awhile to get my photos to look good, so I thought I could just give you the advice that I've stumbled upon. But just a warning, I did get an A in college photography :) (not to mention my husband just finished his doctorate in photography doesn't seem to hurt.) John does take a couple pictures for the blog and takes more "formal" pictures of the girls on occasion as well (it only takes weeks of asking). He leaves most the blog pictures for me to take since "You're with them all the time" as he says.
Tip #1
Light, Light, Light
This is the biggest thing, "seeing" your light. It sounds silly but makes a big difference. There's lots of different types of light, so it's just a matter of finding the best light. The light is going to change all kinds of things from exposure to contrast and all kinds of other fun photo jargons, but most importantly light will either make your picture awesome or well.... SUCK. So the moral of the story (or tip) is try different kinds of lights, try turning your flash off sometimes.
Tip #2
Get Close!
This is one that I love. Most people stay way to far back for their photos. We love to see those big beautiful eyes, those pouty lips, and their cute button noses. When you're not close enough, we miss it all! So when you think you're close enough, get closer!
Tip #3
The Right Equipment
I remember John telling me when he started his doctorate that he needs a better camera to take better pictures. I said that's a bunch of crap, but let him get a new camera anyway. He told me all kinds of stuff like bits, sensor size, color spectrum, and other crap that means NOTHING to me. I didn't believe him that the camera helped him take better pictures until he finished school and let me use his good camera... Well he was right. It makes a huge difference. The big thing is finding the right camera for what you need, and that's REALLY hard. To get the best pictures I think you need a camera that let's you make the decisions. I like to have some control (if you know me that shouldn't surprise you) over the pictures and a good camera lets you do that. Right now I use a Canon 50D and it's great. I can chose to take multiple pictures at once, I can choose to change my exposure, my aperture, and all kinds of things. I love it!
Tip #4
Angles
Very similar to the Get Closer tip I gave, the angles you take pictures at makes a big difference. Don't always take it the same. I tend to take pictures from a similar angles, but it's usually from the girls' perspective. Look at things from the bottom, the top, a kid's perspective. Tilt the camera, go off angle, try something new!
Tip #5
Find a Good Editor
Sure, maybe now you can take great photos, but you still have to get them ready to either print or post and you need a good photo editor for this! There's nothing worse then trying to look at a photo on a website only to find that it was never resized and is MASSIVE so it takes 9 years to view. There's all kinds of options here, John prefers Adobe Photoshop. This isn't for everybody, it's expensive and complicated. It's actually not even for everybody in our house (or for every computer). We don't have photoshop on our laptop because (as John points out all the time) it's to old to load his new photoshop. So we found a pretty awesome (and free) alternative. It's a website that has a full photo editor that's kind of like a Photoshop Light. It's Pixlr.com. It's pretty smooth and has all kinds of options. Oh yeah, did I mention it's free? We're mac people at our house, so we also use iPhoto to edit photos sometimes too.
So remember to have fun with it!
Hopefully you like these tips and can use them!
Got some questions still?
Then just post them and I'll respond!
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