Studio Calico

photo tip

Hi Everyone, it's Susan here today with a photo tip of sorts to share with you.  One of our first thoughts when snapping photos of our kids and family is to capture expressions and faces -- But there is also so much that can be captured in through an image taken from behind the scene.

I got down in the sand (so that I was at the same height level as my youngest son) to snap this shot of my boys and hubby at the beach on vacation.  I love that the vantage point of the shot makes you feel like you're right there, walking along with them.

I also love that by snapping a shot like this from behind (without the obvious facial expressions to focus on), that your focus is then drawn to smaller details - like baby feet wading through wet sand!  I used this photo on a travel page that was included in my Elmwood Park gallery.

A second example of this photo tip to shoot from behind the action, is another shot of my boys (again taken on the beach!  because that is where we spend a big chunk of our time)...

I snapped this as we got to the beach one afternoon, right before they both made a mad dash to the water and as I was sitting down in the sand to keep an eye on them - and I love the fact that it captures their small little shadows, side-by-side.  The lack of facial expression in this photo, focuses your attention to their joined hands and cute shadows - details that might be lost otherwise.

I hope this post and these examples inspire you to try to change things up a bit in your own pics!

Photo Tip of the day

As you probably know, I am a huge fan of using photo enlargements on my layouts. I usually prefer to have my photos printed 8.5 x 11 to fit into my scrapbook, but not all photos I take are: A) Perfect or B) Fit into that 8.5 x 11 vertical size I love so much. So what do I do? I crop and convert, usually to black and white.

I wanted to share two layouts which I did this on so you could see the original photo and how I "cropped and converted" to make the photo fit the page (and definitely more appealing - at least on the City of Lights layout!)

This photo was taken in extremely low-light. I converted it to black and white and lightened it considerably before printing it to use on my page. Although the photo is definitely grainy, I still love it. 

I love this picture of my son and I, but I wanted to scrapbook it 8.5 x 11, so I looked for a creative way to crop it. I always think that not every part of a person needs to be in a photo (for example, I cropped almost all my hair out of this shot!)
 

I hope you get a chance to scrapbook with enlargements and also to look for creative ways to crop and convert them...you might be surprised with what you come up with!

photo tip of the day

Hi everyone, it's Kelly here to share a little photography tip with you.  A friend recently introduced me to a new app called Average Camera Plus while we were out having cocktails and I was so impressed with the results.  It's great for taking photos in low light and since I love food photos or restaurant photos, this was the answer to a lot of my problems! The app works by taking seven snapshots then averaging them out to get the best image.  You can then adjust the brightness to bring in more light to the photo.  Here's an example of the app in action.

I am not a big fan of flash photos in general, especially in dark places.  You can see that even with the flash the glasses were blurry and too bright.

No flash is just not a great option when you've got such little light.

You can see that by using the app, there is a huge improvement on the light and sharpness of the photo.

I ran the photo through Instagram (follow me at @kellypurkey) to brighten it even more and share it on my feed.

The important thing to remember with this app is that it's taking seven shots, so you must hold your phone still (I anchored it on the table) and whatever your taking a photo of must be completely still.  It will work great on buildings at night, would be cool with a birthday cake lit up with candles, and I can't wait to try it with a Christmas tree later in the year.  Hope you have fun with the app!