You’re finally sitting down after getting your kids breakfast, doing a load of laundry, a load of dishes, picking up cheerios and if you’re lucky, eating breakfast yourself.  You’re finally getting a little peace and maybe you’re even drinking coffee, but then your beautiful child does the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.  You’re sitting down so you pull out your iPhone and snap a photo.  But it looks awful.

The struggle is real.

You may think that using the zoom feature on your camera or phone is a great compromise in the sitting/getting up photo taking struggle, but it actually is a bad deal.  Fixed point lenses are not able to physically change so it’s just the processor inside stretching out the image and reducing the quality.  If however, you have a camera with a lens that moves then zooming could work out well for you (provided that you’re not still too far away).

So if you find yourself at the mercy of a fixed lens, you can take the photographic reigns back by zooming with your legs.

Filling the frame with your beautiful child is way better than a photo of mostly grass, and this is almost always true.  We have a temptation to accept photos with little subjects in the camera only to look at the photo later and wish our subject filled the frame.

You can find some internal motivator to get you into photographic action.  For me I think about the work of deleting bad photos, like “am I really going to show this to anyone?”  If the answer is no, then I get up and take a better photo.

Taking photos of kids is work for sure, but it’s totally worth it to feel like a mom-photographer-rock-star.

Like waterparks and lemonade, location based photography is seasonal. January and July are the quietest months when people are hibernating after the holidays or away on vacations. Periodically people call asking about studio photography (there are several great places in Rochester you can go) but if you’re looking for non-studio options the world is still your playground. Here are 3 ways to photograph through the winter.

1. Brave the cold.

Especially after a snowfall, outdoor portraits in the winter are magical. The strategy is to layer your clothing, wear your coat in between shots, and to move very quickly. If you time it just right, you might even get a snowy day that’s not also frigid.

To see more outdoor winter portraits, click here.

2. Relax at home.

This is both the most and least popular option out there. I would say a huge percentage of photo sessions take place in people’s homes, but many people are also concerned their home won’t be “good enough”. Interestingly, sometimes you just end up using a wall anyway. Jenna has impeccable taste, but during her most recent photo session we just used the wall.

The nice thing about this option is that if you have kids they’re already comfortable, and you also can go outside for a portion of the session even if it’s cold. So you can have your cake and eat it too.

To see more in-home photography sessions, click here.

3. Ask a favor.

Photo sessions generally taken an hour or less and businesses are often happy to accommodate. Think about a business you frequent or a business owner you know to see if they might be okay with your photo session happening there. This session happened at the Aurora Inn because one of the family members was a friend of the manager.

Similarly, this family was able to request a session at Artisan Works because they’d been members there for many years.

Don’t know anyone with insider access? Click here to check out these top five indoor Rochester locations.

This is a total cop out on my end, but every year we give the grandparents a photo calendar. I don’t have to think about what to get and they know what’s in the wrapping paper.  So either they love it and are happy, or know I won’t get them anything better and aren’t disappointed.  Mediocrity or bust.

Because we print six copies one also goes on our fridge.  The previous years’ go on the bookshelf and my kids love trying to wrap their little minds around how there could have possibly been a time before they were born.  And even though I took 4,000 images of my kids this year (literally), the 100 or so that make it into the photo calendar are the ones they actually see.  It’s so easy to let our images rot in cyberspace.

Photo gifts are a great way to bring your images to life, but there are about 5 million companies out there, so which one should you choose?

Of course you ALWAYS have the option to order through a professional lab, and just like eating at a fancy restaurant, you can’t really go wrong with that route.  But if you’re looking for something more economical or just want to get your creative juices flowing, photo printing companies have more options than a Chinese restaurant.  You could probably even have your photos printed on toothbrushes if you really wanted.

So without further adieu, here are my three favorite non-professional photo printing companies:

Shutterfly

Many years ago before I did this with any sort of professional-ness I tried a bunch of different places and settled on Shutterfly.  They have excellent color reproduction and after using them for over a decade I’ve never once had a quality control issue.  Their user interface is top of the line and makes designing products a breeze.

And of course, since it’s the season for buying, they have substantial discounts happening right now. Also be sure to check out their 5% cashback for college offer through Upromise.

Minted

I learned about Minted last year when a client wanted to go above and beyond with a set of Christmas cards. My lab didn’t offer anything that stood out to her, but Minted had hundreds of options. They feature independent artists that offer designs on their site (making it like the Etsy of holiday cards).  They are pricier than Shutterfly but have an unrivaled selection for the creative types.  If you are itching for an exclusive coupon code, contact me and I’ll send one your way.

Mpix

If you’re looking for the professional lab experience without the professional involved, Mpix is about as close as you can get without having a website.  Their offerings are almost identical to the labs I partner with and since they have a professional lab side, my guess is that the quality is pretty similar.  I haven’t used them recently because I tend to just order through my lab, but when I did the quality was impressive.

Places to avoid

One hour labs tend to have poor color representation and poor quality control. Companies that partner with one hour labs are also of questionable quality for the same reason.

I hope this is helpful to you on your photo printing journey!

Please note this post contains affiliate links but I didn’t sell my soul – all opinions are 100% mine.

When people think photography they tend to think a lot about facial expressions and composition, but after those have been mastered (or at least considered) what really separates the oil from the vinegar is lighting. The irony here is that photography means light writing but it’s the most important, most overlooked thing about it.

In real photo sessions I’ve found that the easiest thing to do is to bring an external light.

This basically means we can use any background anywhere (almost) and still have super fantastic lighting.

But where does this leave you if you don’t have an external flash, lighting umbrella and light stand handy?

You have two options and three bullet points.

1. Go for the moment and ignore the lighting.

Sometimes your kids get really excited about grape pickers at Randall Standish Vineyards  where they sell the best grape juice you’ve ever tasted in your life and you may not be able to get permission to move the heavy equipment to somewhere with better lighting.

Or they have cookies and they say, “take a photo of us!” but are all squinty and not looking at the camera with harsh shadows all over their little faces.

But really at the end of the day you don’t care, you just want to capture the moment.

2. Look for an interesting background in open shade.

Open shade means that the camera (or iphone) is pointed into the shade. If Daniel and I had switched places, that would make his face underexposed and the background overexposed.

3. Do both. 

Life is short – live dangerously.

In short – if you can shoot into open shade. There will be no harsh shadows on faces and people will be far less squinty. This limits your choice of backgrounds, which may or may not be worth the compromise. If you’re not sure and things aren’t too stressful, you can always do both.

We recently escaped the gravitational pull of Rochester and flung ourselves to DC for a few days.  It’s a rare place in the world that should be renamed “Photo Op” because that seems to be the primary thing that people go there to do.  If you watch carefully, you’ll notice that many people walk right up to their monument of choice to be photographed, which I thought it would make a great blog post about what NOT to do.  So here’s to an often overlooked principle of great vacation photos – placing your subject!!!

The temptation is real.  You see this amazing thing you’ve always wanted to see, and you want your picture with it, so the most logical thing to do is to stand next to it while a random stranger snaps away.  Believe it or not, that’s the worst possible place to stand because this is what that looks like.

Typically if your subject is large, for example, the Washington Monument, the shuttle Discovery, or a whale, it will only serve to dwarf the person you care about to the size of a baby chicken.  Your end goal is to see them both.

How do you accomplish this?  By placing your subject about 6-10 feet in front of you, and filling the background with the cool thing you’re experiencing.

After my daughter ran to the shuttle to have her photo taken, I asked her to walk back toward me until she was big enough to be identifiable.

That’s already about 500 times better. Because really we know what the space shuttle looks like – the point is that Melody was in the same room and was like, “wow, that’s really big.”  So the most important thing is really the person, and that you be able to recognize (but not see every detail) of the thing behind them.

Next, we want to move her over a little. The image is unbalanced because she’s directly in front of it. Roughly, we want to follow the Rule of Thirds, which says that an image is most visually pleasing when the subject is placed in the intersection of grid lines or on a grid line that cuts through the image when it is divided into thirds.

All rules are made to be broken at some point, but in general this is true.  Notice that the shuttle nose is at an intersection and Melody is on a line.  This is more visually pleasing than when they’re aligned.  Thanks for bearing with the snapshot quality images.  I wanted it to be realistic… and I thought it would be weird to carry a lighting umbrella around.

Next you’ll want to play around with different angles.  It’s easy to take an image from just one spot and move along, but there’s a process to figuring out the best possible image.  This is one part of what separates a good photographer from a bad one – a good photographer is not afraid to experiment with new ideas or to withhold them from public view.

Try moving to the side of an object to see if you like the perspective better.

Or squatting down and shooting up for a unique angle (just avoid photographing boogers).

You might also try clucking like a chicken. And, as much as you can, keep your background free of random people you don’t know or things that aren’t important to the image, like people you don’t know.

Also when you try to take a photo of your toddler being cute, be aware that he may decide to duck under the railing and run under the shuttle Discovery. And you might need to chase him.

What are your favorite vacation photo tips? Share below!

One of the easiest ways you can improve the photographs you take of your children is by giving yourself a little leg workout. As adults, we want to accomplish tasks with the least possible work. For tall people that usually means taking photos from where we’re standing, but that’s often not the best possible angle especially when it comes to children.

We see our kids doing something cute, and we take a picture like this.

It sort of gives us the idea that a young child is curled up in a chair watching a movie on an iPad. It’s an okay photo. But if I squat, I get this image.

Even though it’s not artwork and I clearly need to do a better job cleaning my children before photographing them, I’m sure we can all agree that it’s about 500% better because you can see more of Eli’s face.

Here’s another example. Nathan was toddling around being cute since he was playing with toys rather than emptying my spice rack. My exert-minimal-effort-self took a photo.

The top of his head looks great. If I squat though, it’s a completely different image.

Notice that even when I get down pretty far (for me) I’m still taller than him. We forget our height difference sometimes! Funny since we spend so much time carrying them around.

So the next time your kids do something really fantastic, be sure to get down at eye level for drastically improved images!