Capturing your Family in Photos

Baby Basics west Toronto was lucky enough to have a visit from guest speaker Hope Hanson, from H2Photo.  She gave us some great tips on how to make the most of your family photographs.  Following is a guest blog by Hope covering some of the items we discussed.


A Couple of Quick Tips and Ideas for Your Photography!

Besides your camera, the most important tool in taking wonderful pictures of your family is your manual. That will explain to you all the fabulousness of that tiny piece of electronics. Spend some time (like mom’s have enough time to sit down with a real book), but at the end of the day, it will make a real difference in your photography.

Try and remember what you are capturing – if you are trying to capture the cherry blossoms in the spring in High Park, fill your image with the pinks and whites, and have your family be a small part of the image – however if you are capturing that beautiful dimple on your daughter’s cheek, then fill your screen and your image with her smile.

If you are looking at taking your photography to the next level, start practicing taking your camera off the automatic mode. Doesn’t matter if it takes you a while to get the “perfect shot”. Once you are able to use the Aperture – Shutter Speed or even Manual mode, you will find that you will make the pictures that you want. There are lots of great resources out there to use – one of the best is a website called Clickn’ Moms http://www.clicknmoms.com/ Even look up videos on YouTube. There are a couple of great places to take a few classes include Henry’s Camera.

Also, there are a couple of things that you need to remember. BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP. Years ago when you processed your film, if you lost your negatives, you had the actual prints. Some easy ways to “back up” is to never delete your memory card. SD cards are relatively cheap now and you can purchase enough “memory” for probably pennies a day.

The next thing to remember is to PRINT – with the way that technology changes, if your baby’s pictures had been on a floppy disk, by the time they would be in high school it would be next to impossible to retrieve those images. If you had printed them, they would be “safe”. You can even store them in a nice box until you have time to place them in an album or if you are more ambitious scrapbook – but mostly, make sure that you can see them!

And most importantly – don’t wait until you have your hair done, lose a few pounds or get a new top to be in the pictures WITH your children. Your children will look back a the pictures 10-20-30 years from now and see you – the woman that they love and adore IN their lives and not just behind the camera. Go to the big box store just so you can be IN the pictures – do whatever it takes so that years from now your children will have the pictures of you to go along with the fabulous memories you are creating now!

By Hope Hanson
H2PHOTO.CA