Be Prepared
I was a Girl Scout. I was trained early to always “Be Prepared”. You can’t capture memories if you aren’t prepared. If you don’t have your camera with you and a charged battery and plenty of shots on your card you don’t have a chance of capturing the moment. Have the right lens on your camera for the activity that you want to capture. Know your settings BEFORE the moment happens that way you can just concentrate on shooting when the time comes.
Happy Friday, Mom*togs!
Canon 5D Mark II, 50 1.2
F 2.0, 1/200, ISO 640
F 2.0, 1/200, ISO 800
F 1.6, 1/100, ISO 1600
Fun With Eggs?
It’s so funny how polar opposite these two can be. Brayden is so deliberate and careful. He uses the dipper when dying Easter eggs and doesn’t want to get dirty. He is a complete and total rule follower.
*** All images shot with Canon 5D Mark II, 50 1.2
*** I shot all of these images with an aperture of 3.5 because I wanted both Brayden and Kennedy in focus. Since Kennedy was sitting in front of him, Brayden would have been very out of focus if I would have opened up my aperture wider (smaller f stop number). For the first image below of just Brayden I could have changed my aperture to 2.0, but I was shooting so fast that I didn’t think about it. It wouldn’t have made a huge difference in this image anyways.
F 3.5, 1/1000, ISO 125
Kennedy on the other hand just goes for it. Sticks her whole hand in the dye. Throws the eggs because she thinks they are balls. Definitely not a rule follower.
F 3.5, 1/640, ISO 125
F 3.5, 1/640, ISO 125 
Easter egg dye will come out of skin eventually, right? Because her hands and legs kind of look a bit jaundice right now.
F 3.5, 1/800, ISO 125
Backlit vs. Full Sun
I shoot backlit 99% of the time. Even when the sun is high in the sky I shoot backlit. However, sometimes there is a good reason to shoot with the sun behind my back.
I spotted this vintage motel sign on the way home from Arizona. I initially shot it with the sun behind Brayden’s back. But, the colors just didn’t pop.
*** Canon 5D Mark II, 50 1.2
F 2.0, 1/5000, ISO 125
(I don’t know why he’s covering his mouth. It might have been because of the interesting people who resided there…)
Luckily the sign was also on the other side. Look how much better the color pops!
When I shoot with the full sun on my subject I like it when they don’t look directly at the camera. This helps avoid the harsh shadows on their face. I also like wider shots so the shadows aren’t as noticeable.
365 Project Print
Only two months after I finished my 366 Project with Kennedy I finally got the print up on my wall. And it makes me SO happy. Last night Kennedy was looking at it and pointing out the pictures of Mickey Mouse, balloons, and Mama 
Brayden is jealous that he doesn’t have a “calendar” of his own yet. Good thing we have an adjacent wall that his Project 365 will look great on!
I got the 20 x 20 collage printed at Mpix for $18.99. The frame is from Ikea and was only $20, which is not bad for a 20×20 frame. The frame is actually 19.25 x 19.25 (darn Swedes) so you will have to trip down your print a little, but it’s worth it for the cheaper cost. I bought two of these just in case Ikea stopped carrying them. I want Brayden and Kennedy’s collages to have the same frames. Ikea has another 19.25 x 19.25 frame in metal that was only $14.
See this post for the tutorial on how to make the collage in Photoshop.
Brayden’s 5th Birthday Pictures – Behind the Scenes
Last year’s birthday pictures were a little hard to top. This year Brayden wanted an art gallery birthday party so I took off with that theme and decided he needed to paint a huge mural on my studio wall. The set up was easy. Just a roll of white seamless paper. We attached two rows of the seamless to the walls with push pins and to the floor with painters tape.
Brayden wanted to paint a rainbow. It was messy and fun. Of course we had to help a little, but he loved being able to do some of it all by himself.
After we had set everything up I realized the background wasn’t wide enough for me to get a good wide shot. It’s an easy fix though. Especially with solid colored backdrops.
Simply select the area you want to extend with the rectangular marquee tool (the square with the dashed lines). Make sure the “style” is set to “normal” and not “fixed ratio”.
Then press “command t” (control t for PC) for free transform. I held down the “shift” key and then dragged the right side all the way to the right side of the image. I pressed enter when I was done.
The other side is a little more difficult because there is less area to work with. The good thing is you don’t need a lot of area to work with.
I pressed “command t” again and held down the shift key and dragged the left side this time.
Looks pretty good to me! Lastly, I used the spot healing brush to fix the seam where the two papers meet. And that’s it!
Have you been wanting to get your hands on a copy of the UNmanual or UNposing Guide? Then you’ll want to purchase it this weekend! 40% off both until Sunday, 2/17, at midnight PST! Use the code “momtogis4″ and be sure to purchase them from this link to get the discount!
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