ABC Challenge : Week 3

Week three of the challenge already! Every week the group is growing and a wonderful suggestion was made to have a picnic at the end of the challenge for all the participants.  So keep your eyes open for something scheduled for mid July or so! Photography tip #3

Natural light is your friend.

There are lots of reasons to try to take photos without your flash:

- flashes often blow out the photo so the person's face is too bright

- flashes can distort the look of people

- flashes can eat up your battery power so it either takes longer between shots or just kills your battery really fast

Try taking more photos outside or just by a window.  But remember if you're by a window not to put the person up against the window or that will likely just cause the photo to be backlit. And direct sunlight isn't always your friend either (I distinctly remember the photographer on my wedding day wishing it weren't quite so beautiful and sunny out).

Here are a couple of articles by people who can say it better than I can on flash photography and using natural/available light.

Coincidentally Shawna, one of our contributors, just recently wrote a post about turning off your flash too - check it out!

Question: Is anyone interested in offering a tip for one of the weekly posts? Either a photography tip or a great spot in the Ottawa to go to take photos. Email me at kidsinthecapital(at)gmail.com

My two picks for this week:

C is for climbing

P is for playing (obviously flash isn't always bad :)

Participant photos

I am giddy with delight and how many of you are joining up and adding photos each week! Remember to post your photos to the letter discussion page as well as to the main pool.  Go visit the pool. And tell people how much you like their photos, comments always feel so good! :)

Here is a sampling from new photos posted this week:

jhscrapmom takes gorgeous photos and has also been a huge asset in helping me figure out this flickr stuff :) This looks like a great spot to go and take photos - maybe she'll share where it is! (Z is for zoom)

I love this breastfeeding photo by Tiana. So quiet and peaceful. (Q is for quiet)

Dani was one of my inspirations for this challenge and I love that she's taking part! I love the way these TTV photos look! Also very thankful for her flickr help :) (v is for vehicle)

This photo by Stella is just so sweet -I can't get enough! (c is for climbing)

Can't wait to see all this week's submissions.  Snow forts perhaps? ;)

ABC Challenge: Week two

Week two and I'm having a blast with this. More and more people are joining in to the challenge (you should too!) Here are my two photos for this week. The photo of Kiernan running is one of my favourite photos ever.

Y is for yellow

O is for outside

Participant photos

I love looking at the photos other participants have been submitting. Have you been checking out the flickr group? Here are a few to entice you over :)

How cute is this guy?! O is for outside by Carly@thetree.

A photo by meaklims after Kids in the Capital's heart :) (O is for outside)

Bokeh by jhscrapmom . So gorgeous. Too advanced for most of us for now I think. (W is for wet)

I love the feel of this photo by somekindofmom. Y is for yellow.

I could go on for a lot longer - there are so many fabulous photos to choose from! Please feel free to join us next week - it's never too late to start playing along.

Photography tip #2

I believe a lot of you are probably taking photos with point and shoot cameras so I've been trying to find tips that make people more confident in taking great pictures even without a DSLR.  Here are a few of the tips I've found:

1) Make use of the presets on your camera.  Once you learn what they do, they can help you take better photos without doing anything more than turning a dial or pushing a button.  Here is an article on About.com that gives you more of an explanation on what all of the different presets do.  I'm a big fan of portrait mode.

2) Change your perspective.

- get closer

- zoom in tighter

- take a few steps off in a different direction than you usually do

- get above the scene, or below

It might make your shots more interesting and different.

3) Take a lot of photos. This is true no matter what kind of camera you have. I'm taking about 500 photos a week right now to come up with my 2 photos that I'm really happy with every week. Shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot - and then sift through to find the gems.

Housekeeping

- The flickr group now has a main pool for all the challenge as well as a discussion thread for each letter so that you can see the groupings of each letter (since people aren't all doing the same letter on the same weeks). Check out the "an idea" thread to see the details on how to add photos to the threads.

- As mentioned before, it's never too late to start taking part. Please feel free to start adding your photos to the flickr group, even if it's not every week but just time to time.

- I am assuming a lot of the people interested in the photography tips are using point and shoot cameras as opposed to DSLRs. Could you please comment and let me know what you're shooting with if you're interested in my photography tips?

See you next week!

Lara is the mom to 3.5 year old Kiernan and 11 month old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can find her at her blog Gliding Through Motherhood.

ABC Challenge : Week one

Week one is done and I hope the challenge has inspired you to take lots of photos this week - or maybe just different ones. I got a few I'm really happy with and had a hard time choosing which letters I wanted to share with you this week! Here are my two:

U is for Umbrella

Both totally different but interesting I think!  Check out the other submissions in our flickr group and add your own. Next week I'll start adding some of the submissions to my posts so everyone can enjoy!

Week 1 photography tip

I had Photoshop Elements once upon a time, but I don't on this computer and for the longest time I was emailing people photos to crop or resize for me, or appropriating Eric's computer so I could use Photoshop. A friend of mine kept telling me about Picasa so I finally got around to downloading it - LOVE!

Here is a 5 minute video that gives you an overview of the software. But my short explanation of what I like is simple:

- Free

- I can crop photos

- I can resize photos

- I can tweak photos

Here are some examples of some simple things you can do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rskC6c_5L1M

Easy! Free! Give it a try!

I'm looking forward to week two and getting lots more great photos and I hope you are too! I am working through the list randomly, but if you prefer more structure then for next week your letters are C and D (Climbing and Discovery). Here is a link to the original list just in case you've forgotten the categories. Can't wait to see your photos!

I have a few housekeeping questions and comments while I work out the bugs in my challenge and would love your feedback on any of these:

- I can grab photos from the flickr group as examples of good photography in the challenge without copyright issues, right?

- I am looking for photography tips and have a few up my sleeve, but I'm no expert so if any of you more talented photographers playing along want to help out with a tip, email me at kidsinthecapital(at)gmail.com and I'll credit the tip to you and link to your blog/business/whatever.  We're here to learn and I'm sure many of you have fabulous insight to offer.

- I've had some varying comments on the lack of structure to my challenge (I'm letting you do the letters out of order and we aren't all doing them together).  If you feel strongly either way, let me know. I want to get a sense of where preferences lie :)

Thanks for playing along!

Lara is the mom to 3.5 year old Kiernan and 11 month old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can find her at her blog Gliding Through Motherhood.

ABC: Challenging the photographer in me

by Lara Anyone who knows me knows that photos are my thing. I love taking photos; if I got good photos of an outing, it makes that outing all the more successful in my eyes.

But, I feel a bit blah about my photography lately. And I feel inspired by bloggers like Dani, Andrea , Anna, Amy, this list could go on forever, who take amazing photos! I want to do better!

This past weekend, however, with the challenge of finding some interesting photos for the Kids in the Capital header, I was able to get some great shots I feel really proud of:

So in the interest of getting more photos that I can feel proud of, I am going to set a challenge for myself:

In the next 14 weeks I will get at least one photo I am proud of in each of the categories (in no particular order) in my following ABC list. Every week I will present you with 2 of the photos (hmmm, maybe photos from two categories so I can show you more if I feel like it), as well as a photography tip I have discovered that I can share with you.

Art Books Climbing Discovery Eating Friends Green Hugging Inside Jumping Kisses Laughing Mealtime Night Outside Playing Quiet Riding Swinging Trees Umbrella Vehicles Wet Xcited (OH! Cheater!) Yellow Zoom

And I would love it if you would join me! I set up a flickr group where we can all share our photos with each other. Together we can not only share our beautiful photos but highlight some of the amazing spots in our fabulous city, from all its different angles.

Lara is the mom to 3.5 year old Kiernan and 10 month old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can find her at her blog Gliding Through Motherhood.