Daycare Pictures l Monroe, New York

To be a children photographer you have to have something more than sharp photography skills. This is not a job for you if you are scared of children, or they make you nervous (Kids can smell the fear).  Liking children is also not enough. I hear a lot of parents complain how they can’t get their own kids to cooperate for pictures.


My expertise with children started back in my college days; I babysat many kids from all ages and family sizes. The hardest ones were three year old girl triplets. Let’s just say I thank God everyday that my first born was ONE boy. With all that experience, I learned how children think, what makes them laugh, smile, and most important how to get them to cooperate. Now all my expertise was put to a test last week, when I did a photo session of my son’s daycare center.  There were twelve children from one year olds to six year olds running around. Oddly enough, my OWN son and the bigger kids gave me the most trouble, but at the end of the shoot I knew I had captured fantastic pictures!

I think after this I can call Octomom and ask her if she would like a family portrait J.

Best Computer For Photographers Mac vs PC

A week ago my 6 year old PC broke down. I did not have nervous breakdown at the moment, cause have been very good from the beginning about backing up all my photos in a CD, before I get even started editing them. The nervous breakdown started Friday, when I saw my husband getting hard core matrix, doing bunch of weird stuff in the computer. Then he said what I was fearing, we need a new computer. Nooooo Why? Why?, I said. That was not my plan, I wanted to save some money for my $4,000 MacPro with an awesome big monitor. I probably would need two years before that could happen, but buying a PC this week, was not part of my plan. Then I got into the discussion with Tom about Mac vs PC, it’s an ongoing battle in my household. Yes, Macs are over price, Macs are exclusive to Apple and the apple fans are annoying (I won’t stand in line for 2 days to be one of the first to get their products). I have not much technical knowledge about computers but the little I know, Mac is the best computer for photographers.At the end of the day, it all comes down to the money, so a top of the line PC for $800 wins this round…for now.

Off Camera Flash

“Off Camera Flash: The use of flash which is not located on-camera. An example would be studio flash or using a speedlight remotely”

Sometimes I feel like Alice in wonderland, falling into rabbit holes and always trying to guess where to go next or what to do. My new adventure is off camera flash. I enter the world of wedding photography, and it’s an amazing place is full of excitement and wonderful moments to photograph, but is also, full of very difficult and unpredictable light situations. 

Photography is painting with light, if there is no light, there is no photography. This is when I realized how critical, it is for me to learn all about flash Photography.

Learning about OCF right now feels very intimidating, but if there is something I’ve learned, about being a self taught photographer, is how tackle problems like this: Research, Study and Practice. So I started researching online, and asking photographers I know about the best camera flashes out there, then best books and authors that have written about OCF.

Resources

<!--[if !supportLists]-->·      Strobist.com a blog all about off camera flash ( lighting 101, On assignment)

<!--[if !supportLists]-->·      Parallel to the blog there is a Flicker group called Strobist.com

 Purchased

<!--[if !supportLists]-->·      <!--[endif]-->Canon flash 600ex rt (a.k.a. The Big Kahuna)

<!--[if !supportLists]-->·      Speed liter’s Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites

 
Motivation

 For this week on, I will be posting flash assignments once a week, to show what I’ve        learned that week, and how to apply it. Lets do this!!!

 

Best tip to take better children photos

When it comes to taking pictures of kids, the most important rule is to get down to their level. Don't get confuse, I'm not asking you to get all crazy and act like a baby, although you can always start acting like Barney or the DJ guy from Yo Gabba Gabba, those things might help get great smiles out of the kids. But what I really mean, is that you get down to their EYE level.  Get down on your knees and see the world the way your children see it. Pictures taken from above emphasize how small your children are, but pictures taken at their level portray their great personality. Just doing this one little thing will make the photos you take of your children stand out much more than the ones most parents take.

All the best,

-Mariana

Tips for taking better photos on your vacation

 

I just finish processing the pictures from our Bahamas vacation week, so, I thought I would share some tips for taking great vacation photos, and enjoy yourself while you'r at it. 

Do some homework

  It’s nice to get inspire by pictures of the place you are about to visiting. The Internet (Google) offers a great way to do research. Search for both information and pictures of the place you're going. Good research not only helps you save precious time on your trip, but you can also get inspired with amazing photos. I do my research on Flickr.com, which is an amazing community of people who love photography. I often find lots of inspiration there.

Choose the right time

 As a die-hard photographer I have always wanted to capture every single moment of life with my camera. The result was always just more photos of my trip and a very annoyed husband, grumping every time I asked him to pose. Now that I have a baby, the task is even harder, so my advice is, instead of continuously shooting throughout the day, pick three or four times for posed family photos in front of land marks or casually snap candid’s here and there, this way you are not constantly asking people to smile.  Know when to put away you camera and just enjoy the day.

Distract method

Some of my best pictures of family have been when they are completely unaware that I’m taking their picture, and usually this happens if they have really nice drinks or foods in front of them.  At dinner time I would be the first one digging in, but the opportunity to take great pictures as your family gets their yummy desserts is priceless. So my cheesecake can wait two minutes.

Pack the right gear

 On this trip to the Bahamas, I brought minimal gear with me, since I knew that I would be trekking around a lot with diaper bags, my bags and in wet sandy beaches, a very unfriendly location for big cameras. I brought my:

• Canon 40D with the lens 50mm f/1.4 and 24-105 f/4, 430EX flash, a Canon point & shoot: The big DSLR camera I would take to the beach, since this is where I wanted really great pictures, and I would also use it on any really special occasions, like our last family dinner at the cruise
• iPhone 4. was used for the silly candid moments where I could not get to my dslr fast enough. But to be honest, I would have used my iphone way more if it wasn’t for the fact that I was afraid to turn it on while abroad. Roaming charges scare me :P.

Tip: Carry a couple of one-gallon Ziploc bags. They are waterproof and dustproof and can be used to protect lenses and film. A bag can also be fashioned into a tent cover for your camera so you can shoot in the rain.

  

To be or not to be, in the picture that is

As the self assigned official photographer of all my family trips, way too often, I find myself not being in the pictures. Keep in mind, photos are memories, and if you are not in them, it’s almost like you were not there. So one tip, is to give a stranger your camera :s, well easier set then done, if you have a DSLR like me, most people get intimidated by it, just make sure you set everything for them, focus, exposure and lock the focus for them, then tell them to just point and click the button. Another option is to set up your camera, on your camera bag, bundle up your jacket into a pillow or any flat surface you can find and use the timer. Most timers give you 2 sec or 10 sec till they shoot the picture, so know where you will be standing for the picture, click and RUN FOREST RUN!

Warning: Hand holding a DSLR is not recommended unless you’ve got some serious guns to support it.

Pay attention to detail

Is Always great when you capture some details about the place you where visiting, since this will help tell the story of the things you saw and where surrounded by.

 I hope these tips help you not only get better pictures, but also enjoy yourself while taking them.

All the best,

- Mariana

When life gives you lemons...

Last week David decided to wake up at 5:30 am everyday, this baby is taking the daylight savings time to an extreme, and of course he wants mommy to play with him while he is up. So Wednesday, I was a total zombie just barely staying up, then Thursday he did it again but this time I had my mind set that he was not going back to bed, so I start getting him dress and I notice that the sun is just starting to come up. Bingo! is the magic hour. For those of you who are not familiar with this term, us photographers call the golden or magic hour to the first and last hour of sunlight during the day, when the quality of the light is at it's best. You don't get this quality of natural light at any other time in the day, so I take my camera out and start taking some photos and here is one of my favorite ones. Pure magic!.

6 Questions to ask yourself before buying a new camera.

My friends and family are always asking me what camera I would recommend them buying, and I just stare at them like dear on headlights, because I know there are a gazillions options out there for digital cameras, and I need to ask a questions about what they want, before I give an answered. So here are the 5 questions I think you should ask yourself before even consider to buy any camera:

1.       What will I want to photograph? If the answer is landscape, portraits, outdoors, indoors and everything in between, you would want to consider a lens with zoom, this will offer you many options, these zoom ranges should work great enough for what ever you plan to do. But if you think you may have special needs like, nature and wild life photography where you need big zoom lenses or real state and indoor photography where you will need wide angle lens, or you just want the best possible optics, an SLR with interchangeable lenses is the best camera to get.

2.       Do I want to make big prints of my photos or just post them on the web and maybe print a couple for an album? this will determine how much resolution you need, 10 mega pixels should be enough for great quality of small to medium prints.

3.       Do I want a camera that fits in my pocket ? One way to think about cameras is to divide them into those that fit in your pocket and those that don't, because those that don't fit in your pocket hang around your neck. The larger cameras may offer more features, but the down side is will you not want to carry them. So what is the point of having an awesome camera you can't take to your camping trip or the playground. There are a few cameras that fall somewhere between the extremes and will fit in a coat pocket or purse.

4.       What brand?  I only buy Canon, but that is a very personal choice, I know nothing about other brands, I only know Canon. I trust the brand and I love their products. 

5.       Where Should I buy my equipment? When buying camera equipment, it’s usually a big mistake to go for the lowest price. All reputable dealers are grouped in a very narrow price range, perhaps within $10 of each others on a $400 camera. This is because the margins are so low, most are selling at just above cost to be competitive. The two stores where I do 90% of my buying are:

·        

      Low end equipment: Amazon (www.amazon.com)  I love the way they give user reviews and rank sales of all camera equipment. I also love one-click buying because I don’t have to find my wallet.

·        

      B&H Photo and Video and Adorama are the stores for professionals and they take their reputation very seriously. In the small circle of professionals, bad business practices will kill a company very quickly as word gets around. It is in this discriminating market where B&H thrives. The B&H business is run by people whose religion dictates that they not do business on the Sabbath, so the store won’t even take orders from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. You have to respect this way of doing business and in some cases delay your order by a day. They frequently make up for it by getting things to me long before I expect them and it’s not just me, it’s everyone.

how much $$$ are you willing to spend?. Photography is a very expensive hobby,but there is a lot you can do with a little budget. Just remember, if you have an SLR you can always buy lenses little by little till you build your camera bag and you can also rent professional lenses and cameras if you want to test them before you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars.  http://www.adoramarentals.com

My first love :) Canon F1 from 1971, this was my first camera passed to me by my dad.

This topic has a lot more to it, but I asking yourself these few questions, will help you narrow down your search list and hopefully make a better decision into buying your new camera.  

Good Luck!