I reread my recent blog post about lacking photography inspiration and in it I was such a whiny baby! Winter is ugly, I'm so uninspired, blah, blah, blah. The fact is that I'm surrounded by inspiring things if I'd just get up and do something about it.
This winter had been unseasonably warm, the rye grass that Eric top-seeded our lawn with is lush and green, and my pansies are blooming beautifully.
I also have 4 precious children who, in my so very unbiased opinion, make lovely photography subjects.
So, no more whining. Just doing.
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Clara decided she was ready to conquer the scooter the other day.
She really struggled with it at first. However, it was so fun to watch her determination! She had to give the scooter a good talking to, but this little girl would not give up!
Within just a few minutes she was off and rolling and so very delighted with herself.
Since I have lots of these pictures of her to share, I'll throw out a few photography tips as we go.
Objects in the foreground create a nice sense of depth as in the previous picture.
When your subject is moving, it's a good idea to leave visual room in your photo for your subject to move through. Meaning, if she could actually move in the photo, there should be room in front of her to allow for that movement. In the photo above, there is not a lot of room in front of her, but there is more than in the photo below.
This photo (above) seems cramped and Clara looks much more confined than she did in the previous photo. The sense of motion has been lost.
This next photo is much better. Clara has plenty of room in front of her to ride on through the frame.
Now for a photo-shoot prep tip: Comb your daughter's hair, for goodness' sake! That scraggly hair is now captured for all eternity! (But, otherwise, I really like this next photo. Her body language is so focused and I love the sunshine in the trees in the background.)
Notice that I again left plenty of visual room in front of her to preserve the sense of movement.
Try to find different angles and perspectives. You don't always have to see your subject's face to get a good photo.
Though, that precious little face definitely deserves some attention of it's own!
I love the light in her hair in this shot. The sun is actually setting to the right of her and she is in the shadow created by our house, but a few rays of sunshine are bouncing off the windows of a house across the street at the left and are back-lighting her perfectly.
As you can see from the rollovers, I make plenty of mistakes. I had to straighten, correct exposure and white balance, remove distracting objects from the background and even clone out the snot from Clara's nose in the last picture. Unfortunately, though, I haven't yet figured out how to photoshop scraggly hair!
