A Cherry On Top Photography Blog

Here it is, as promised!  I have created a page just for photographers, containing frequently asked questions and other tips.  It will definitely be a work in progress, but it’s off to a good start.  I typed up my basic work flow last night, but I’ll be adding example pictures to that section soon.  I want to show what an image looks like SOOC (straight out of camera) and every step of the way to the full edited version.  I think a lot of photographers get frustrated when they see my work because they don’t get the same results.  Well, let me just say, it takes a lot of work to get them to look that good!  Anyway, enough rambling…I’ve got a shoot in a couple of minutes.  HERE is the link to the new page.  You can also find a link to the new page at the top of the blog, under the info tab.  Enjoy!

Our friends came over this afternoon for a play date and they brought their new puppy with them!

His name is “Oscar Mayer” but they call him “Oskey” for short.  He was full of energy and I was cracking up the whole time they were here.  It was so fun to watch the kids play with Oskey…except when Abbey kept dropping him on his head.  Sorry about that Kristen! 

What I love about kids…they can turn an otherwise dull afternoon into a magical winter wonderland!

She was making a snow angel…

“Ready?  On the count of three.  One…two…”

“THREEEEEEE!!!!”

We had a blind play date with a friend of a friend recently.  It was fun!  She had some photography questions, so I told her to come on over and bring her camera with her.  She also brought her cute baby boy with her for us to use as a practice subject.  Ahhh, how I love those sitting-but-not-yet-crawling days!

So, I guess you could say I had my first “mentoring” session.  It was a practice run, and while it was a lot of fun, I know I’m not ready to do it for real just yet.  Amy says she got a lot out of it, but I didn’t feel like I was very helpful to her.  It was hard to stay focused because we were also trying to keep four kids entertained.

Amy had lots of a good questions and I’m going to include them in my FAQ’s for Photographers page.  The main thing that kept coming up was the use of on-camera flash.  Amy says she uses her flash all the time in her home and bounces it off of the ceilings.  I told her she might be able to teach me a thing or two about that!  I don’t know much about flash photography.  I bought a nice flash two years ago to shoot a couple of weddings, but I haven’t touched it since.  There have been times when I wish I knew how to work the dang thing, but most of the time, I can get what I need by bumping up the ISO.

I avoid using an on-camera flash because when they are pointed directly at the subject, the resulting image can appear flat and boring, and flashes also cast big ugly shadows behind the subject.  For those reasons, I prefer the look of natural light, so I encouraged Amy to put the flash down while she was here.  I know a couple of photographers who can bounce a flash and get great pictures consistently, but it’s not easy to do and I am not the girl to teach her!  Lucky for me, she is already taking a class on flash photography.  I told her I just might have to join her there!

The image above was taken with natural light.  He was sitting about five feet in front of a small window that was about three feet above him, to the right of the camera.  You can tell where the window is by the catch lights in his eyes.  He was at a 45 degree angle to the window.  (Camera settings: f 2.2;  SS 1/350;  ISO 320)

This next image was taken with similar settings and a flash (set at very low output).  It didn’t turn out too bad considering I haven’t used a flash in two years!  I bounced it off the white slanted ceiling behind me.  Notice he has two catch lights in his eyes now?  One in the middle (the flash) and one at about 2 o’clock (the window).

There really isn’t a whole lot of difference between the two images, probably because the flash output was so low, but I just wanted to post the results of our little experiment!  The benefit of using a flash (if you know how to use it properly) is the fact that you can take pictures of your kids anywhere in the house, and at any time of the day.  You don’t have to wait for the perfect time of day and then get them up close to the window.  So I guess I should really practice with mine some more, for those times when there just isn’t enough natural light!

Thanks for stopping by Amy!  It was nice meeting you and your sweet boys!

Location:  The Playroom

We were so excited to find warmer temperatures outside today.  We spent the majority of the afternoon playing at the park.

I get asked this question a lot by photographers:  “How do you take photos of a child in motion on a swing?”  My answer:  Set a high shutter speed and f-stop, then take about a gazillion images and hope for the best!  Seriously, that’s all I do.  I try to get them in focus, but it’s pretty much luck when I do.  I just toss out the ones that are blurry.  I usually get one out of five in focus.  My camera settings for these swinging shots ranged from f 4.0; SS 1/400; ISO 100 to f 8; SS 1/200; ISO 400.  I kept changing them.

She looks like she is just dangling here, but she was actually swinging pretty high!  She wasn’t sure what to think about the swings at first.

Abbey gets compliments on her long lashes all the time.  The lady who cleaned her teeth today said something about them, which is what inspired me to take this image…

Madison was in full motion here too, which is how I got the huge grin.  I can’t believe it’s in focus!

We were the only people at the park, except for the occasional jogger.  It was such a gorgeous day!  Where was everybody?

Madison likes to play with mulch, and eat it too.   She is easy to please.

Photography Tip: Look for open shade and set your subject just inside it, like so…

If they step outside the shade, you will get highlights or “blowouts” in some areas.  Notice the bottom of her sweater and pants.  You want to avoid this.

Please note: I am posting these images solely for teaching purposes!  I would never give images like this to a client!

This is another example of her stepping out into the sunlight.  Notice the un-even light falling across her face?  This is one of my worst nightmares when taking pictures.  It totally ruins an image for me.

The next photo is an example of color cast.  Notice that she looks like she might be the offspring of an Oompa Loompa in this photo?  That’s because the light is reflecting off of the slide and bouncing onto her face.  Again, just posting for teaching purposes…an example of what NOT to do!

I despise shooting in midday.  I avoid it whenever I can.  But she looked so cute munching away on her popcorn chicken in the stroller and the canopy provided a little bit of shade for us.

We went out again this evening and found some better lighting.  I love this image that Brian took of them in their matching outfits, looking at their shadows…

I want to take the girls back to this hill after the grass turns green!

This is one of the toys she picked out of the basket at the dentist’s office this afternoon.  It’s a sticky sun…

Whew!  That was a ton of pictures!

It’s supposed to be even WARMER tomorrow, so don’t expect to find us at home!

Edited to Add: I forgot to write about how to get creative angles while taking pics of kids swinging, but I found a post on one of my favorite blogs and she talks all about it!  Check it out HERE!  Also, I am very close to finishing up my FAQ’s for photographers page, so check back tomorrow!  It’s going to include photos of my studio and packaging, as well as the basic steps I go through to proof a session.

So, I said I was going to post more every day “real life” images on my blog.  Unfortunately, this means lugging my huge camera everywhere we go, which is a pain when you already have to carry a twenty-pound toddler on your hip and steer a three-year-old around.  But I know years from now, I’ll be really happy I did it.

This is what we did today…

I have to brag on Abbey for a minute.  She did AWESOME at the dentist’s office!  She sat very still for a long time while they cleaned her teeth.  She knew there was a prize waiting for her at the end of the visit.  They always have a basket of rubber frogs and lizards to choose from and she remembered that from previous visits.  It’s amazing what a ten cent prize will do for a kid.  Maybe I should have a basket of surprises in my studio for all of the kids who come through!  I wanted to get a picture of Abbey picking out her prize, but I was busy supervising, making sure she didn’t take more than she had earned.  Plus, Madison was trying to eat everything in the basket.  It was past her lunch time.

By the way, they said Abbey’s teeth look great!

Photography Tip: I have started switching the camera’s White Balance to “Tungsten” for indoor photos lately and it helps tremendously.  However, when I did that at the dentist’s office, the photos turned whitish blue, probably because they were fluorescent bulbs overhead, not tungsten bulbs (duh), so I switched the camera back to Auto White Balance.  I did not adjust the color at all in PS and I think it looks pretty good.  (Camera Settings:  f 2.5; SS 1/200; ISO 500)

Somehow, this image didn’t make it into last night’s post.  I thought it was a neat one too.  It was my attempt at getting a more creative angle…

Photography tip of the day: Get down to your kids’ level!  Try to see the world through their eyes.  I was laying flat on the floor when I took this (on my right side).  The front door was directly behind me, putting light on her face.  I tried not to worry about the angle, as much as getting her face in focus.  I was working with a wide aperture, so I had to nail the focus!  Notice the dog and the floor just in front of the camera are blurred, which is what I wanted to happen.

Camera settings: f 3.5; SS 1/250; ISO 1000  (50 mm 1.8)

This is our dog, Makenzie.

I got really, really bored this afternoon and decided to take some photos of her.  I never take pictures of her anymore because her looks don’t change that much.

Makenzie is 7 1/2 years old.  She was our first baby, before had our real babies.  She is about as sweet and smart as they come.  She used to get all kinds of special attention from us, but since the girls came along, she spends most of her time in the backyard or laundry room.  Now that Madison is walking, I’ve been letting Makenzie come into the house more often to play.  She makes herself useful by cleaning up crumbs that have fallen around the bottom of the high chair.

Abbey tells me about a million times a day…”Mom, I’m Makenzie.”  If I don’t say anything, she will keep repeating herself, getting louder and louder until I acknowledge that she is indeed Makenzie.  Sometimes she will even yell it randomly from her room upstairs, when she is supposed to be sleeping.

I have been inspired by Ashley Ann to take more everyday photos of my children (and pet).  No matter what they are wearing or how dirty the house is…I’m going to try my best to do this, so get ready to see lots of posts about my kids!  I know many of you already know who Ashley Ann is.  She’s seems to be pretty famous in the blog world!  I haven’t met her in person yet, but I know I will someday!  She lives about twenty minutes South of here and we chat online from time to time.  She is one of the most inspiring people I know.  She takes amazing pictures, crafts, decorates her house really cute, donates things to people in other countries, is raising three boys and a girl, and she still manages to find the time to write the most amazing posts about all of the things she is doing.  Not only that, but she also takes pictures of all of her projects as she goes along and then posts tutorials on how to make them.  I can’t find the time to make anything these days, let alone take photos and post tutorials!  And I have half as many kids as she does!  She amazes me.  If you don’t already read her blog, you should start.

I’m just finishing up the rest of the photos from this session.  It was the kind of session where we all left feeling like we hadn’t gotten anything.  Ava had more energy than her parents and I combined, and we spent much of the session just watching her dance around the studio.  Her parents might have left exhausted, but I think Ava had a ball.  I can almost hear her giggling as I look back at these photos…

“Miss Ava Grace was sitting on the beach, basking in the sun, when all of a sudden…”

I have no idea what prompted this expression, but doesn’t it look like she has just spotted a shark in the water?  Or a very large crab crawling towards her foot?  I barely caught it because I was laughing so hard and nearly dropped my camera.  What a silly girl!