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Lifestyle Photography: 8 Tips for Capturing your Own Children
If you have children that love getting their photo taken, then I totally envy you! As my son has grown up and developed his own (strong willed) personality, he has also grown more resistant to getting his picture taken. Of course that is fine – I mean, who wants to have a lens in their face everyday? – but as a mother who wants to document our family life, it can be downright tricky at times! However, I have my ways of making sure I can still take lifestyle shots, either by ensuring his co-opration, or by being sneaky :)
So, if you are one of those who have children who either cower or complain when the camera comes out, here are my tips for getting lifestyle images of your children, whilst ensuring that they are still comfortable with it.
Shooting with Photo Books in Mind
I been making a photo book a year for a couple of years now, and over that time I have (unwittingly!) developed a shooting style that helps me more easily develop page spreads that look good together in my family photo books. I still end up with a few pages of random photos, but for the most part, the pages look more like they were "meant" to be together, and I can put the thing whole together more quickly.
This is what I aim for when shooting day-to-day stuff that I know will make it into my photo books, but I think the following tips would apply if you are a lifestyle photographer and want to be able to sell photo books too.
6 Tips for Better Indoor Photos
As winter draws in, I do find myself shooting indoors more often, which presents it's own set of challenges - working in smaller locations, and dealing with less light are the two that spring first to mind! I used to shy away from shooting indoors, but as much of our normal, everyday lives take place indoors, it was important to me to get more comfortable with shooting there!
Here are my tips for improving your indoor photos:
Zooms vs Primes: Which is right for you?
One of the main benefits of owning a DSLR is the ability to change lenses to suit what and where you are photographing.
As you progress beyond the kit lens, and start to look at adding to your lens collection. one age old question pondered by many always crops up. Should I buy a zoom lens or prime lens?
It's a very difficult question to answer because there are a lot of factors to take into consideration: your preferred shooting style, your available budget, and what your main subjects are going to be.
Hopefully what I can do here today is give you some things to think about when you are comparing the two!
Ready? Let battle commence 😀
A Step by Step Guide to Using a Speedlight
Let me preface this post by saying I am by no means an expert at using flash. I know people who will use it during the day, or can light a scene in the pitch black using one speedlight and an umbrella, or use several as slaves and masters (?!)
I am not this person.
I only dig the speed light out when the days get shorter, and natural light indoors becomes less, and I need to supplement the existing light - that's it!
But as I'm willing to bet that is why most lifestyle photographers reach for their speed light, I wanted to give you a guide to use to use flash for this very purpose.
The other thing to note is that for this to make any sense whatsoever, you really must understand your exposure triangle and how everything goes together - but for the purposes of this article I'm just going to assume that you are confident about what each of the elements does :)
(Oh, and If you are unsure about why you would even want an external flash unit, i wrote about this recently with some examples here so you can read that first so you have some background!)
With all that caveats neatly out of the way, let's start on how to use flash!
5 Ways to Use Pinterest for Photography Inspiration
Although you might not think so, Pinterest can be an amazing resource for photographers when used in the right way! It can be a wonderful source of inspiration, whether you need some ideas for planning for a session, a little help when trying to define your own style, and can even help you create your own inspirational images!
I know many people think of Pinterest for photographers in a negative way, because they either compare themselves to the photographers on there (and think they find themselves lacking!), or they try to re-create an image they have seen down to the last detail and wonder why it doesn't good as the original.
But Pinterest can definitely be used as a force for good - you just have to know how to use it :)
In this post, I'm going to give you some ideas for ways you can use Pinterest to help you get the most from this platform for growing your photography skills and creating gorgeous images.
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It's been quite a few years now since I made the switch from Aperture Priority Mode to shooting in Manual Mode, and it was one of the BEST things I ever did to improve my photography skills.
It was like a whole new world opened up to me, and I started TRULY understanding exposure, and in turn, getting the images that I wanted.
Of course, there was a lot to learn, and there are some things I wish I had known before I started!
So, here are 10 things about shooting in Manual Mode that you might just wish you knew…