In the spirit of showing progress and documenting how - with just a little practice - you can really kick your family photo's up a notch, allow me to showcase one of our awesome members, Leslie. Leslie recently jumped at the chance to have some one-on-one feedback and mentoring on our "M&M Momtographers & Mentoring" thread. You can read more about it here if you missed it.

Being the eager momtographer that she is Leslie was our first mom to post a picture and ask for help. Below is the picture that she posted.

With a little discussion, some critique and a few clear pointers on what she should do differently, we sent Leslie on her way to give it another go! And WOW did she improve! Not only was her straight out of the camera shot pretty impressive but with just a little effort... look at that edit!

(Straight out of the camera - putting her new skills into action!)

TA DAHHHH... The Final Product!

We are incredibly proud of Leslie, and equally proud to see the Momtographer's methodology at work helping moms take better pictures of their families.

You can see the entire discussion that brought Leslie to this point here, and also begin your own journey and start posting!

Snap To It!

I love the internet - where else can you catch up with someone you haven't seen since high school and pick up instantly? Well, I haven't seen my friend Courtney in *ahem* a number of years, but from her Facebook page it seems the only thing that's changed about her is the number of gorgeous children… including her latest who is 5 months old today!

So in celebration of today Courtney, here are some tips for capturing your baby boy!

First things first - find your pocket of great light.  Where are the good windows in your house?  Glass doors? No glass doors? Take advantage of this gorgeous weather we're having down south and open one up!  Windows and doors take the bright sun and diffuse it into gorgeous portrait-taking light, so find your best and brightest portal and plop that baby boy down at the edge of the light. (Or you might want to try a baby doll first so he's fresh when you get your camera settings perfect!)

What do I mean by the edge of the light?  Here…  see how my not-so-little one *sniff* is positioned just on the shadow side of the light?

Now look what happened when I put my duff down just inside the door - me sitting in the light, and her just on the other side - magic!  And since she's facing the light - look at what it did to her eyes!

Now lets talk about backgrounds.  From what I've seen on facebook, your little man should be lifting his head and pushing up.  Since we want a decluttered backdrop, use a bench, ottoman or even a chair like the one Sydney's sitting on and place it behind him. Now take a very neutral blanket (dark and heavy wools, felts, etc work nicely - but so do plain white down comforters!) and drape it over the back of the ottoman spilling onto the floor under him.  It doesn't have to be perfect, just make sure it's not distracting.  If it's large enough, you could even put a boppy or a dog pillow underneath it to give him some reinforcement. 

Next - you have a Sony DSLR-A300 camera, so rather than get into how to use your manual controls (because I'm just not familiar with your camera!), lets try and take advantage of the built-in portrait mode.  That should be your equivalent of Aperture priority mode. While you're at it - turn off your flash! You want all natural light here.  According to the Sony Website, there should be a "flash off" position on the Exposure Mode dial. 

Also, check your ISO.  If you find a really great pocket of light, you should be able to stay between 100-400.  The lower the ISO the better RAW files you have to work with on in your computer. How do you know what that number should be?  Take a test picture.  Too dark? Bump your ISO.  But be careful - go too high and you'll introduce noise. 

Speaking of Raw files, are you shooting in RAW or JPEG?  For these precious portraits, you want to be in RAW, or at the very least, RAW + jpeg so you have both on hand. Just make sure your memory card is clean so you have lots of room!

Okay - now that you're done with your menus and dials, get on your belly and shoot!  Go eye to eye with that baby boy.  Connect, laugh, tickle, sing Elmo songs!  Don't just rely on your zoom - get in close with your camera.  You don't have to see the whole blanket in every shot.  What if you just got his head?  Just some toes? Get down low with him and just see what happens!  Just make sure he stays facing the light! 

And finally - come over to the boards and show us your pictures!! 

Challenge Yourself!

When we created this site - we had two main goals.  The first was to create a fun, warm, safe place for moms to show off pictures of their kids.  Done - check!  The second was to create a place where moms are continually challenged to learn how to take better pictures.  Almost done- half check! :)

I (all bias aside!) think we are off to a GREAT start! The information is here and available to you, but I really want to to challenge you to take it a step further and start the process of taking better pictures! Don't worry, we are going to help! :)

So here's what I want you to do:

1) Participate in the monthly challenges! It's fun and there are cool prizes!

2) We are starting a thread called M&M (Momtographers Mentoring)- On this thread you post a picture with your settings and as MUCH information as you can about

your set up. Myself and/or Adrienne will critique and give suggestions for improvement for every picture posted, from composition, to post processing, to focus, we will get down and dirty with SPECIFIC suggestions. We ask that you follow up our suggestions with another picture attempting to put them into action! It's going to be a conversation, give AND take to help you improve.

This thread will be in the same vein as "Critique Me", but will be much more in-depth and focused. Other members are welcome to jump in if they have something to add or a question about anything posted, but we promise to do the heavy lifting here. The goal is to have at least one thread strictly dedicated to helping you take better pictures! :)

SNAP TO IT!

f+ss+ISO = exposure

Now that you know what the three main parts of a camera are, the next step is to begin to understand how they work together. This is where the magic happens! It's up to you, Miss Momotographer, to find the combination of these three numbers (f-stop, shutter speed and ISO) that equals the most pleasing exposure in any given situation. Sounds scary, we know, but we have full faith that if you've read this far, you are up for the challenge!

To get you going in manual, we want you to try out this method that works great for us when we turn on the camera and try to find our happy exposure place!

THREE EASY STEPS:

1 - Assess the light.  Is it bright and sunny? Dark and cloudy? Are you indoors or out? Based on these answers, set your ISO first. Let's assume it's a bright sunny morning out in the backyard - so set your ISO to 100.

2 - Next, look at your lens. What focal length are you shooting at? (You can either look at the numbers on the lens to figure this out - or some cameras will tell you in the viewfinder). Okay, whatever the focal length is, double it and set your shutter speed one notch above that number. Let's say you're using a nifty fifty (a 50mm prime lens).  Set your shutter speed to 125.

3 - Lastly, ask yourself what it is you want to capture. Just your tot sititng in the flowerbed eating soil? Or the whole yard - dog and child in it. Once you've decided, set your aperture accordingly. Let's say you want the whole shebang in clear focus - pick a "safe" closed down aperture like 7.2.

Now CLICK!  What do you see? A perfectly exposed picture? A bright blob of nothing?  A dark abyss of black? It's likely something in between.

Above we picked our ideal settings, but now we need to work with our environment from that starting place. If it's too dark, either bump up your ISO or open up your aperture.  Then try again. Keep doing this until you are pleased with the result. It's hard at first and you will lose a LOT of shots - so spend plenty time practicing on things that it's okay to miss. TRUST US - over time this becomes easier and easier to gauge and you will be able to adjust settings in seconds to get the shot you desire!

TAKE A DEEP BREATH!

We can hear you now - "WHAT?!? I thought this was supposed to be photography made easy."  It is, it's just going to take some time to get you there. The reality is this - when shooting in manual or half-manual, every location and situation will require a different set of settings depending on the light available and what you're trying to accomplish creatively. That's why we offer our Learn By Looking section, so you can begin to absorb what kind of settings may work in different situations. Shooting on the kitchen floor? Take note of the settings on THIS SHOT and see if they work for you.  You may be just an ISO or shutter adjustment away from the same look.

Hey you photo buff (or aspiring one!)...

This section is for you! It’s the meat. The comprehensive pieces of the puzzle that will help you harness the power of your camera and turn it into some serious snap.

Photography, at its core, is the science of capturing light.  When that light is interpreted by your camera’s sensor, it becomes an image. In order to understand how to capture that light, there are some things we have to break down that end up looking and sounding more like a science lesson than your regularly scheduled Momtography program.

But we know that you care infinitely more about the end product than the equations and technicalities that get you there. We just want to take great pictures of our kids! So we've taken the advanced side of photography and stripped it down to the nuggets you must know to achieve your goal.

We call it The Momtographer's Methodology. It's where we take out the irrelevant, break down the jargon and tell you what it all means to a time-crunched mom. If you keep searching beyond our site, you will see that all of this stuff has much broader implications then what we are presenting, but do you really care? We didn’t think so!

So go hide in a corner with a delicious beverage of choice and dig in, it won’t take long and you can go back to doing what you love best, USING your camera to capture all those things that make you smile.

If, you haven't already, switch your camera dial to "M" (manual), grab the camera manual that you probably banished to the basement and dig in!

Whether your shoot Nikon, Canon, Sony or Kodak, use a Mac or PC - to store and edit your photos on your home computer - the same truths apply.

1. You must import the photos from your camera to your computer.

How might you do this? With little exception, there are basically 2 ways:

- USB cord

- Card Reader

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2. You must either store them in folders or in an organizing software.

What does this mean?

- Folders are generally just a place either on your hard drive where the files are stored. You can name them whatever you want, but you can't actually do anything with your pictures until you open them up in a software program

- Organizing software refers to programs designed to let you store AND view your photos and some even let you edit without ever leaving the program. Some of the more common ones are, iPhoto, Lightroom, Bridge, Picasa and Aperture

3. If you choose to edit, you will either edit in your organizing software, or make a trip to and from a specialized editing software.

- Above we touched on the fact that some organizing software also has editing capabilities. Some of the more advanced all in one programs such as Adobe's Lightroom and Apple's Aperture are great, but they are a bit pricey and also take up a lot of room on your computer. If you are are a Mac user iPhoto is a very powerful all in one editor.  Google's Picasa also falls in this category is available for PC and Mac and is free.

- When we refer to stand-alone editors, there is really only one that stands the test of time and has become the standard by which all others are judged - Adobe Photoshop.  It is a very pricey program, but extraordinarily powerful.  There is also a "lite" version called Photoshop Elements that is very useful and about 1/5th of the price.

4. If you want to email or post your photos online, you must somehow export them.

All we mean by "export" is to send them from either your editing program or computer to another place (i.e. email, web or print agent)

The two most common ways to do this is either with the "attach" feature in your email or the "upload" button on your web program

5. If you want to make sure your photos will not go away with a terrible virus or crash, you must archive them.

This step is SOOOOOOOO important and the most often overlooked. Especially by those of us who don't do this for a living! All we are saying here is copy, copy, copy!!!! Whether you choose to make archived dvd discs or get an external hard drive, your pictures need to be kept in more then one location!

So what is a good exposure? Simply put, it's an image that is an accurate and artistically satisfying recording of what you saw when you took the picture.

Every pixel that lives on your camera's image sensor records either red, green or blue, each measured in increments of 0-255.  0 = black and 255 = white with every shade inbetween.  It's those numbers that make up a digital photograph.

In fact, your images are natively recorded in a color mode that your computer understands as RGB, referring to - you guessed it - red, green and blue.  This will be important later when you bring your images into your computer... but for now, let's get back to exposure.

If too much light is let into your camera and allowed to land on the pixels that make up your image sensor, then you will get pictures that are a sea of white! Those tiny little pixels were slammed with more light than they could handle, so they recorded 255 (all white!) and BOOM - you lose important color information.  This is called an overexposed photo - your image sensor was over exposed to light!

Anyone wanna play spot the child in this overexposed picture on the left?

Clearly, so much light was let into the camera that the pixels were all "blown out" (that's cool speak for pushed to 255 or all white). Not all examples are this extreme - think of when a blue sky appears white instead of blue, or when just part of your little one's nose or cheek gets lost in a sea of white. There was too much light let into the camera for the sensor to give you an accurate representation of what your eye saw so the actual color information is lost!

Compare that photo to one taken just a few seconds later on the right - this time with different camera adjustments.

It's your job (and sometimes your camera's) to determine how much light is allowed in. This is done by adjusting your aperture, shutter and image sensor settings to prevent images like this from happening.  But before we get to how we determine what those settings should be, we need to look at what happens when not enough light gets into your image sensor.

So what happens when too little light is let in?  The pixels lose out on information too - just to the opposite end of the spectrum.  All the important information for your image gets lost in a sea of black!  Your picture becomes underexposed - your image sensor was under exposed to the amount of light it needed to make the picture!

We weren't going for a silhouette of a rocking chair in this photo!  There wasn't enough light let in the camera to accurately record these sweetie-pies' faces (or much else).  So most of the pixels on the camera's image sensor recorded 0 - or black.

How then, do you control how much light hits the sensor?  By finding the right combination of settings for the three most important parts of your camera.  Again  - aperture, shutter and image sensor.

Sounds simple right?  Well, it's not. There are an infinite number of combinations and finding the right one for your situation can be really daunting at first.

We'll get to the part where we walk you through how to find the right settings for you, but first, we've got some learnin' to do.  Specifically about aperture, shutter speed and your image sensor.

If backlighting is what happens when your subject is lit from behind while you expose for their face, then silhouettes are what happen when a subject is lit mostly from behind and you expose for the light.

Silhouettes are created in extreme lighting situations when the light behind your subject is bright and the light on and in front of your subject is low. When you expose for the bright background, you render your foreground and suject to be darker, giving you a silhouette.  It's a great storytelling trick that puts just the form or the "idea" of your subject completely in context with it's background.  Just look at this story told at the beach near sunset...

When using a point and shoot camera or shooting in automatic, turn off your flash and the camera will do the work for you - automatically exposing for the brightest part of the image (the backlight). When shooting in manual, spot meter for the background (the brightest light) by pointing your camera at the backlight and get your settings from there!

One of the best things about Silhouettes? They're easy to accomplish with just a little bit of trial and error and they go a long way to help you understand how your camera handles exposure.  Artsy and informative - what's not to love?!?

It's one of those things. You probably nailed it on accident once or twice and had no idea how to do it again. You've certainly seen in some really jaw-dropping photos but you could never put your finger on exactly what was going on. But wow, once you understand how backlighting works you can reap it's benefits and rock it in your own photos!

Backlighting is easy to describe. It's that beautiful light that shines from behind your subject, illuminating them to the point where they quite literally glow! It can truly take your breath away when done well. But it's not always the easiest effect to acheive - it's one of those lighting opportunities you have to be on the lookout for, and then know how to take advantage of it!

Generally, backlighting works when the light behind your subject is far brighter than the light in front of them. Momtographers will likely find when the late afternoon sun is low in the sky, there's plenty of opportunity for backlighting. Just position your tot facing away from the sun (look for that glowing rim around their hair!) get infront of them, and snap away.  They don't have to be directly between your lens and the sun, in fact, it's better if the sun hits them more at an angle. And you'll have to be on the lookout for lens flare depending on how much light is directly entering your lens. It's a practice that takes, well, practice. But it's an effort that pays off in glorious images.

But once you find your backlighting - you still have to get your camera settings right. This can be tricky in and of itself. Backlighting creates a dynamic lighting situation that can be hard to meter for. Where do you meter?  The face? The hair? And what mode do you meter in? Spot? Center? (Yes, yes, we promised simple, but you said you wanted "serious snap" so it's time we start asking some of photography's harder questions).

We suggest starting with spot metering and going off your child's face. You're going to get lots of blown exposure around the hair and in the sky - but that's part of what makes this look work. In fact, you're just going to have to learn to accept that with backlit photos, you will end up with some overexposed, blown out backgrounds. Because unless your cutie is a glowing ball of brightness like your light source, chances are their skin is go ing to be darker than the background. You can try slightly underexposing thier face to maintain more detail in the background area - you can always play with it in post processing to brighten up the face or bring the background down further. This is what we've found works best most of the time. Well, that and learning to live with overexposed, blown-out backgrounds in exchange for an illuminated glowing angel child!

There's one final challenge with a backlit photo... that's getting nice light on the face and a catchlight in the eye! Why?  Well, the light's BEHIND them. But, if you have them facing a reflective source like a reflector, a body of water or a bright wall bouncing light at them, well then, voila!

We love love love window light! There is just something about it! We said it before in Brand Spankin' New - every home has at least one great pocket of light and often times it will be in front of a window, or better yet, a bunch of windows.

Window light is great for many reasons: you are almost guaranteed good catchlights, your light is lightly diffused and usually pretty even, (except for times when the sun is low in the sky shining directly through it), plus you have the added benefit of being indoors, sheltered from the elements - you never have the weather to blame for not getting GREAT pictures of your fam!

The other great thing about finding an awesome window is the predictability! Over time you will be so familiar with the light and how it come through your window, it will take little effort to create magic time and time again in your little "spot".

The key to really using good window light is to have the window behind you or to the side of you and your camera while your subject faces it. Here - sometimes it's just easier to SHOW you...

Adrienne's happy place in her Alabama neighborhood is her kitchen! As we see here, she has the window to her back and sweet Sydney directly facing the light streaming in.

And here is an example of some of that magic that Krista loves to conjure up in her living room! Krista is lucky enough to have a living room that is 3/4 covered in windows (quite the rarity in NYC!).  Needless to say, she spends a LOT of time shooting there.

She's actually sitting on her window sill with little Miss Luca directly in front of her, looking up at her.

Oh - here's actually a picture of the window Krista was sitting on... but used differently.  This picture is a whole other way to use window light - as a backdrop!  But that gets a little more complicated, so we'll save it for another lesson or we'll check it out in our learn by looking section!

Bottom line - consider window light the gift that just keeps giving to your family-documenting journey.  Even, beautiful, glowing light that will show your child in the best light!