I first stumbled on the idea of Paint Fight photos over at Capturing Joy by Kristen Duke. I was intrigued and knew my boys (and my husband) would get a huge kick out of it. However, I really didn’t want to ruin our existing clothes nor did I want to have to buy second hand clothes either.

I was on a mission to take these photos without ruining our clothes. Did I succeed? Well, you’ll have to just keep reading. :)

Here’s what you’ll need:

Washable Paint (make sure it says “washable” on the label)

A large canvas

Squeeze bottles

Paintbrushes

Old Towels (for cleanup)

ARM & HAMMER plus OxiClean Power PAKS 

A Photographer (my dad came over on a whim and used my camera to take these pics for us–thanks Dad!)

Before the Paint Fight

We filled our squeeze bottles with washable paint and used a chair for an easel. We got dressed (in jeans and white shirts) and then the paint fight began!

During the Paint Fight

Squeeze paint on everyone else and the canvas. We gave our boys explicit instructions before the paint fight began that they were not to squirt the paint in anyone’s eyes.

Poor baby girl would rather forget this night…she did not enjoy the paint fight nearly as much as everyone else. :)

After the Paint Fight

Hose down your kiddos (and yourself) and get as much paint out as possible. Use your old towels to help dry off and immediately take your paint-filled clothes and put them in the sink filled with some Arm & Hammer liquid laundry detergent. This will be the pre-soak.

Once the clothes have soaked for a while, put them in your washing machine along with the handy-dandy ARM & HAMMER plus OxiClean Power PAKS. Is anyone else as obsessed with the convenience of these little power paks as I am? They clean super well and I love that you can just throw them in with the laundry without having to measuring or pour laundry detergent!

The Verdict

Thanks to ARM & HAMMER plus OxiClean Power PAKS  almost all of the paint came out of our clothes. The only exception was some of the pink paint on our white shirts and that is because I accidentally used non-washable pink paint (hence the reason I mention multiple times to make sure to use washable paint). Overall, I was super thrilled with our paint fight photos and pleasantly surprised that our jeans survived!

And here is our canvas that will be hanging on the wall very soon. It looked so much prettier (and splattery) until Big Brother decided to smear his hand all over it. Oh well, it is a tangible reminder of a super fun memory!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Arm & Hammer. The opinions and text are all mine.

I know, I know…camera phones are so convenient. Who wants to tote around a clunky DSLR when you can just grab your camera from your pocket and capture those unforgettable memories of your kids? We already have enough stuff to carry around as it is!

I’m all about using my phone’s camera and I normally take multiple pictures with my phone every single day. But those aren’t the photos I’ll be saving forever and always (okay, maybe just a few). Most of the pictures you’ll find in my photo albums are pictures I’ve taken (on vacations and holidays) with my nice camera. And it is such a joy to flip through and see such beautiful photos to represent my beautiful memories!

And just for reference, all cell phone pics are taken with my iPhone 5s. All “real camera” pics are taken with my Canon 7D and either my 28mm 1.8 lens or my 50mm 1.4 lens.   Also, none of these pictures have been edited beyond basic cropping, etc. I do not know how to use Lightroom or Photoshop, so they are pretty much SOOC (straight out of the camera).    

Here are 5 Reasons to Ditch Your Phone and Pick Up a REAL Camera:

1. Our families are beautiful. Shouldn’t the pictures we take do them justice?

Just like you, I think my kids are gorgeous and my husband is insanely handsome. Don’t we want pictures of our family to be equally as gorgeous? Yes. I do. :) I’m great with photos of me being a little grainy and blurred (you can’t see my crows feet as easily–ha!), but I want the photos of my baby’s sweet cheeks to be crystal clear.

2. Ummmm…hello, shaky hand. We’ve all been there. Your child puts a diaper on his head and you clamor for your phone to snap that utterly adorable photo. The only problem is that in your haste, your shaky hand managed to ruin your photo! A real camera has a little something called “image stabilization”…and you can always adjust the shutter speed for those days when you’ve had a little too much caffeine…OR for those times that you are slightly jittery because there is a LEMUR CRAWLING ON YOUR CHILD. :)

Phone cameras are also notorious for blurring subjects who are in motion, as you can see in the pictures below. The second picture was taken on a different day but in the same location. You’ll see that my son looks like he is frozen (although I assure you, he was running like a crazy kid). :)    

3. No light? No problem. Instead of defaulting to using the flash (ick!), you can crank up the ISO on your nice camera and get a much prettier picture even in low light! Have no idea what I mean when I said, “crank up the ISO”? No worries. See the bottom of the post! The following pictures aren’t great examples of low light conditions (notice the beautiful blue sky), but they do show how my son was facing away from the sun and was shadowed in the iPhone photos.

4. Blur that background! I absolutely LOVE photos that have a shallow depth of field (a blurred background). But achieving this look is really difficult with a camera phone (believe me, I’ve tried). A DSLR makes it super simple.

5. Do I really want to put those pictures in an album to keep forever and always? Pictures from your phone are great for capturing moments when you’re in a pinch and want to remember that special moment. But if it’s a birthday, holiday, vacation, or special family event and you know you’ll be taking pictures, why not put just a tiny bit more effort into using your DSLR? Your photo album and memory book will thank you (not to mention your kids, 20-years from now). Here are just a few of my favorite photos currently residing in our family photo album…

I know, I know…there’s an elephant in the room. You might be saying:  

“I want amazing pictures. I have a nice camera. But the pictures I take with my nice camera aren’t that much better than those with my phone!!!!”

 

Well, I’m here to help. Actually, not really. I’m going to pass you off to an expert. Meet Kyle.

I recently stumbled on a COMPLETELY FREE 7-part snackable photography course from Shultz Photo School that one of my friends shared on Facebook. I was curious, so I signed up and I am SO GLAD I DID!

Kyle knows his stuff. He was a professional photographer for years and has made it his mission to teach parents like you and me how to use our cameras to take AWESOME pictures of our kids! Each day you’ll receive a short e-mail with TOTALLY REVOLUTIONARY WAYS TO MAKE YOUR PHOTOS AWESOME. I’ve been working on improving my photography for a couple years now. I’ve taken a couple of (very unprofessional and disappointing) photography classes, read my manual cover to cover, and scanned through a zillion blog posts on photography, but I have never encountered information presented in such a succinct, easy-to-understand format that I could implement immediately. I was so impressed! And did I mention it is free???

Just go here to enter your e-mail address and starting getting tips in your inbox! 

We just celebrated Little Sister’s first birthday! We had a sweetheart party for our little sweetheart on Valentines Day with both of our families. It was lovely.

I have always loved the look of professional cake smash photos, but felt that it is a little unnecessary when kiddos normally have cake at their birthday party too. We decided to combine the two together and just have her eat her cake at her birthday party! We made a mini homemade studio and had our family gather round for the fun event! :)

1)  Have your party during the day.  We chose to have Little Sister’s birthday party at 10:30 am. It worked out perfectly as we served brunch and we were able to wake her up from her morning nap once our family arrived so she was well-rested. There was also plenty of sunlight, which will have a dramatic effect on the photos.

2)  Find the light. Find an open area in your home (or wherever you have the party) with lots of windows. Or if the weather is nice, go outside! All of our babies were born in the winter months, so we didn’t have that option. The place where we chose to do Little Sister’s cake smash was in our living room with lots of windows but no direct sunlight.

If you are doing it in a room with direct sunlight, you can use a cheap white shower curtain liner to diffuse the light.

3)  Make your own backdrop. My husband used some beadboard from the dollhouse bookcase he made last year and old trim from another home project to make a backdrop. We secured the back of it to the stairs with some rope and screws. It literally took about 20 minutes from start to finish. Due to time limitations (and sheer laziness), we chose not to paint and dealt with the scuffs on the beadboard and trim.

I also purchased a drop mat that looked like a barn floor that I am already planning to use for a variety of purposes (including photos for the blog).

4)  Turn off your flash. Depending on the lighting, this might be a little tricky. If you have a DSLR, you’ll need to turn your camera off of AUTO (I know, it can be scary). If you have to use a flash, consider using an external flash (I have this one) or at least a flash bouncer.

5)  Make sure people are not standing in front of your light source.  I didn’t do a very good job of this and we had some shadows in our pictures from people standing between the window and Little Sister. I’m not the bossy type, but I might gently ask people to stand to one side  :)

6)  Start snapping!

After you’re done cleaning up, utilize your mini studio to take some photos not involving a cake! :) 

Here are some other pictures from Little Sister’s birthday. We just had our families, so it wasn’t anything fancy but we had a great time!

My favorite thing to photograph is obviously my children. But more specifically, I most recently love photographing their eyes. There is something about a child’s eyes that capture the timelessness, beauty and innocence within them.

This post has very little to do with your camera and very much to do with positioning yourself and your child. In fact, even those of you with point-and-shoots might be able to glean a few tips with this post!

Here’s how to beautifully capture the eyes of your child(ren):

Step 1:  Go outside and position your child facing the sun while they’re actually standing in the shade. Take a few test photos prior to photographing your child in order to ensure you have the settings how you want them on your camera. I would recommend using your camera in AV (aperture priority) mode (more about this here). Oh and by all means, don’t use your flash.

Step 2:  Sit your child down. A tricycle works wonders. You want them to be stationary, otherwise it will be difficult capturing that glass-like quality in their eyes.

Step 3:  Stand on a step-stool, a ladder, or even on the back of your car. As long as you are above your child. They might hold still just to see you up that high!

Step 4:  Get their attention to look up at you and into the camera. This may require a moment of goofiness. Go for it…it’s worth it.

My friend Rachel’s little boy

And if you’re more of a visual learner…

There you have it.

Go outside. Right now. (Or tonight…or tomorrow morning, depending on when you read this.)

Try it. Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

And if you absolutely cannot get outside, place your child in front of a window and stand up on a stepstool (or just have them sit on the floor and you stand up).

And remember…take any and all of my photography “tips” with a grain of salt, I am the student! I am not a photographer and know very little about photography. But I’m trying to learn. And the best way I learn is by trying to teach someone else. So thank you for indulging me.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to read the other posts in this series:

Overview of Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO
Depth of Field
White Balance

And in case you’re wondering, I have a Canon Rebel (a relatively affordable dSLR) and I almost always use my 50mm lens.

White balance refers to how your camera interprets colors. If it doesn’t interpret colors correctly, the hues in the rest of your photograph will be “off.”

White balance can be adjusted using the “WB” on most cameras, which you can see on the photograph above (I have a Canon Rebel and almost always use my 50mm lens).

Here is an example of how much white balance can affect a picture. The only setting that was changed in all six of these pictures was the white balance. And they came straight from my camera…no editing whatsoever.

Wow…big difference, huh? Typically, you’ll want to go with whichever white balance setting describes the lighting of your shoot…unless you’re trying to get a different kind of look for your photo. At which point you’ll just want to play around until you get what you want.

You can also customize your white balance by taking a photo of something white in your current lighting conditions and then manually changing your white balance settings. But that’s a little too technical for me, so we’ll just stick with what we’ve got. ;)

Disclaimer:  I’m not a photography expert. I’m a student and am still learning! There are so many people who are much more qualified to share photography tips with you…but the best way for me to learn is to teach someone else. So there you have it!

The sharpness of a picture, or how much of a picture is in focus, is called depth of field. The depth of field is controlled using your aperture, specifically your f-stop. The smaller the f-stop number, the more the background of your picture will be blurred.

Take a look at these two pictures:

Shallow depth of field:  f  1.8

Wider depth of field:  f 5.6  (still a little blurry in the background, but not as much so)

Some people like for the entire picture to be in focus (like the second picture). I prefer the first. Which one do you like better?

You might be thinking, “That’s all fine and good, but how do I control the depth of field???”

Here ya go:

When you set your camera on “AV” (Aperture Value) or “A” Mode (Aperture Priority) depending on which camera you have, this allows you to control only the aperture and lets the camera figure out everything else. Because I love a shallow depth of field, this is my favorite setting to shoot with.

To get a shallow depth of field, your f-stop will be smaller (like the 1.8 in the first photo above), which allows more light to come in. To sharpen more of your picture, you’ll want to use a higher f-stop (like the 5.6 in the second photo or even higher because even that picture still isn’t all the way sharp).

*Please note:  Some cameras and lenses do not allow your f-stop to go below 4. I was using a 50mm lens (my absolute favorite…I rarely take it off). This lens is stationary and does not zoom, but the lighting in the photos it takes is beautiful.

Any questions??? I’ll try to answer them, but no guarantees. :)

Did you miss Part 1? Go here.

You might also like:

–Tips on Photographing Your Child’s Eyes

–Adjusting the White Balance on Your Camera

Well, last night was our first class. And I learned quite a bit of the basic fundamental terms of photography that I had heard thrown around before but never really understood.

I told you I would share what I learned, but you must promise not to beat me over the head if what I share isn’t 100% true. This is how I understood it to be based on the class and some research I did afterwards to make sure I was understanding everything correctly. But I could be wrong on something. After all, I am the student. Don’t hold it against me. Plus, I still have a long ways to go in my photo-taking ability (as you’ll see through my example shots).

Let’s talk about the shutter. Whether you  have a camera that’s brand spankin’ new or one that is 65 years old, every camera has a shutter. A shutter is like a door. It opens and closes as it takes the picture.

The shutter speed is how long you leave the “door” open. The faster/higher the shutter speed, the more the camera will be able to freeze the action. Slower shutter speeds usually require a tripod because our hands can’t hold still enough to capture the image while the “door” is open (especially anything slower than 1/60th of a second). The longer the “door” is open, the more light that comes in.

For example…

This picture was shot at a shudder speed of 1/125th of a second. Although his back hand is blurry, it looks as if he’s been frozen in midair.

This picture is blurry, indicating that my son is in motion (really, when isn’t he in motion?). It was shot at a shutter speed of 1/80th of a second. And in case you’re wondering whether these pictures were posed…they absolutely were not. These are my children in all their glory. :)

The aperture (F-stop) is like the iris of the eye. It controls how much light comes in. The higher the aperture, the more light that comes in. The lower the aperture, the less light that comes in. These settings are called f-stops. Pictures that have too much light (too high of an aperture) look blown out. Pictures that have too little light (too low of an aperture) are too dark.

The ISO (International Standards Organization…don’t ask me why in the heck it has this name) is your camera’s sensitivity to light. The lower the ISO, the less light your camera will utilize. The higher the ISO, the more light your camera will use. When taking pictures outside in the bright sun, you’ll want to use an ISO of 100. When taking indoors or in darker settings, you’ll want a higher ISO like 800-1600. But in order to have a crisper picture, you’ll want to use the lowest ISO that you can without compromising the light in the photograph.

And in case you’re wondering, I have a Canon Rebel xsi that’s a couple years old. It came with a lens (as a set), but I honestly barely ever use that lens. Instead I use this 50mm and I absolutely LOVE it! It captures the most beautiful lighting and does a much better job of getting the depth of field I like than the kit lens. It doesn’t have a zoom, so it takes some getting used to…but it’s worth it, especially since it is rather reasonable as far as lenses go!

That’s it for today. We’ll get down to the nitty-gritty in coming weeks (I hope). In the meantime, how about you go dust off that camera manual and do a little light reading??? You’ll be glad you did.

*My friend Kristen has a lot more suggestions here. I read her post and thought to myself several times, oh yeah…I forgot about that. Head on over to read more of her suggestions. I’m just trying to dissect this photography stuff into bite size pieces for my own sake. :)

Thursday night marks the beginning of my 5-week photography class (alongside a sweet friend). This is something I’ve never done before but have always wanted to do (besides in high school photojournalism class, that is…when we still used a dark room). I am super-excited! I love my camera and my favorite 50mm lens, but don’t really know about the “technical stuff” that makes photos beautiful. I want to be able to take beautiful pictures of my kids in the moment without having to doll them up and bribe them with suckers after a photo shoot “if they’re good and smile pretty”. Although I’m sure those days aren’t gone forever. Have you ever tried to take a family photo with a tripod…and two ornery boys…and a dog…and get everyone to look in the same direction??? There will still be a time and a place for professional pictures, but hopefully I can capture those special moments throughout the day. And maybe a few will even be good enough to frame!

I thought as we’re taking this class, I would post what we learned for the week as well as perhaps a few example photos.

Keep in mind, however, that I am a student. I don’t really know what I’m doing. There are much more capable people (like real photographers, for instance) to share this kind of information. But as I learned in my teacher ed courses…the best way to learn something is to teach it! So maybe we can all learn together, right?