photos

The Happiest Place on Earth... For a Photo

I really wanted to get a blog post in yesterday, but we went out on the boat again and it was a really long day, so instead my Saturday update has become a Sunday update.  Maybe I'll start referring to them as weekend updates, since that allows me a little more freedom... and laziness.  Now before you ask, yes, I went wake boarding again (thanks for asking) and yes, I got up... TWICE.  I'm almost ready to call myself a wake boarder, but not quite yet.  

Anyway, as you may recall, last week we made the spontaneous decision to go to Disneyland.  We talked about it on a Tuesday and by Friday we were on the road to the happiest place on earth.  I didn't win the Super Bowl or anything... we just went.  It was tons of fun and I got some great pictures, so I thought I'd focus this post on things that I did/learned to make the best possible vacation pics.  Vacations are tons of fun and one of the best parts is going back to look at and share your photos after the fact.  We've started making photo books of our last few which is a great way to keep your photos from sitting on your hard drive and never looking at them again.  In fact creating a photo book for others who may have gone on vacation with you makes a great gift and is sure to make you look like a rock star.  I've found anytime you can be made to look like a rock star it's a good thing, unless you're actually a rock star... then you're probably used to it.

So first off there's the equipment.  You can feel free to take your DSLR and all your lens, flashes, etc. but you'll have to carry it all around with you and while there are many vacations that you'll want to do that, this was one that I didn't.  Also, something I always consider is how much time my camera equipment will spend in the hotel room by itself.  Not because I'm afraid it will feel lonely (which I am), but because there's always the risk of somebody entering the room and walking off with all your stuff.  So, the kind of vacation that I like to bring all my equipment is the kind where it can spend most of the time with me.  In this case, it seemed to make the most sense to bring my Panasonic micro four thirds camera.  There were a lot of times I wished I had my Canon DSLR, but overall I was happy with my choice. Walking around the parks was made a lot easier with this smaller camera around my neck.

Okay, on to the photos! 

 

Tip #1 - Keep your eyes open for the right location.

 

In the case of the following photo, we had finally just bought my daughter the cotton candy she had been waiting for all afternoon.  So, I knew I was going to try and get a few pictures of this momentous occasion. You are outside almost the whole day when you're at Disneyland, so you're often in harsh, bright sun.  Don't let this ruin your photos with strong shadows across your subject's face.  In this case we walked about 30 feet away from the benches next to the cotton candy to a bench that was in some nice shade.  This photo would have looked a lot different in the harsh afternoon light.

 

The day wasn't going to be complete until we got some Cotton Candy.  One of them really enjoyed it... can you guess which one?

Tip #2 - Include environmental elements into your shots

 

I've got a surprise for you that nobody wants to tell you... All your family photos look the same!  Okay, not all of them, but I'm trying to make a point.  When you just take pictures of people and don't include interesting aspects of the environment in your shots, they all start to look the same, especially to others, and after ten years, you won't be able to tell the difference between your pictures taken at Niagara Falls from the pictures taken in Barstow.  Of course I'm kidding... nobody goes to Barstow, but you get the idea.  Try and include cool parts of your surroundings to give your photos more meaning.  I could have gotten in closer on the photo below, but I think the part that makes it interesting and the thing that my daughter is going to remember in ten years, is the tea cups and how much she absolutely loved them (and I absolutely hated them. I'm still dizzy from those damn cups).

 

Try to include environmental elements into your shot so you remember where they were taken.

Tip #3 - Be aware of your surroundings

 

Don't just take a photo, make a photo.  Sometimes moving somebody a few steps, taking something out of the shot, or even just waiting a few seconds can make a big difference in the quality of your shot.  While at Disneyland we went to a character breakfast, which meant I knew I was going to take a photo of my daughter with all the characters that came to visit.  The first one one to come by was Minnie Mouse and as you can see from the photo below, I got a great pic of my daughter, Minnie... and the shoulder and head of the women sitting behind us.  She will forever have a spot in our memories of this vacation.  So in looking through the viewfinder, I knew I had more of this lady in my shot than I wanted.  I immediately started thinking about how I could minimize this lovely shoulder for the next shot.  Along came Daisy Duck.  I had my daughter move just a few steps over which almost completely blocked the nice ladies' ugly shoulder. Just a few steps made a big difference. You can see almost everything else is exactly the same.

 

Hey lady... who are you and why are you in my shot!

Now it's just my two girls!

Tip #4 - Don't forget to include yourself 

 

This is an easy one.  When you're on vacation and responsible for taking the photos, it's easy to forget to include yourself in some of the shots.  Get in there!  You were there too!  Set up your camera so all somebody has to do is push the shutter, ask nicely and voila, you were on vacation! 

Hey, that's me!

Tip #5 - Keep your camera with you as much as possible

 

You never know when you're going to want to capture a moment of your vacation, so try and keep your camera with you as much as possible.  After going back to the hotel, we found ourself at the hotel pool... with a waterslide!   At first, there was no way my kid was getting on that sucker.  I tried and tried, but she wasn't even considering it... then I saw her on the edge of the pool... considering it.  I quickly snapped a photo and soon enough she was sliding down that sucker more times than I could count.  Another great moment that I was able to capture and one that I'm sure will make it in the photo book.  These kind of shots are often missed, cause the camera is left in the room because "there won't be anything for me to take a photo of."  There are almost always photos to be made! 

 

I'm gonna do it... I'm not going to do it... I'm gonna do it... I'm not going to do it... I'm gonna do it!

Tip #6 - Don't just take shots of people

 

There will be a lot of things you'll want to remember about your vacation.  Mostly it will be the people you spent it with, but especially if you're planning on making an album or a photo book, try to take shots of buildings, signs, trees, etc. that will remind you of your trip.  The pic below is of a sign of a restaurant  where we had lunch one day.  I tried to make an interesting shot of this sign, because mixed in with the shots of my family, shots like this will really round out our book and will be a great reminder of other things we did on this trip.

For the record, this is a vacation shot and it's not of a person!

Tip #7 - HAVE FUN!

 

When it's all said and done, vacation is about relaxing, having a good time and spending quality time together.  Try not to make every shot the perfect masterpiece.  Some will be great and some will suck big time.  That's okay.  Have fun doing it and try to capture some of that fun.  The picture below is one of my favorites from the trip.  This was taken right before they went off and joined some hardcore Disneyland gang.  They were being silly and I love that I was able to capture it.  So, if you see a gang of girls, who like pink, wear mouse ears, eat cotton candy and look really, really tough.  Run, run away.  You don't want to mess with them... you can imagine how scary they are from looking at this pic.  Oooh, scary. :-)

If there was a gang for people who love pink, cotton candy and screamin' like little girls on the Tower of Terror... these two would definitely be joining.

The new SmugMug!

So, I have been a user of SmugMug for the last year and so. As a photographer, I was looking for a place to showcase my work, but more importantly share photos I've taken with family and friends.  I needed a resource for uploading a days worth of photos and then easily sending a link to a bunch of recipients so they could tell me what great photos I took! :-)  I also wanted a place where I could sell prints and make downloads of my images available. So I found SmugMug and it was great for archiving photos, sharing albums and making prints available for sale.  The problem was, it didn't look so great.  It was definitely function over form.  The customization that was available was really difficult to use and for a dummy-head like me, made it pretty hard to do anything beyond the basics.

Fast forward to last Tuesday (wait, if it was yesterday I guess we'd have to rewind... Fast forwarding would take us to tomorrow and that wouldn't work cause it's already happened) and smugMug launched their brand new site and I have to admit, it's pretty sweet!   My site now looks like a professional portfolio where I can also seamlessly present and distribute my photographs.

Other than the overall look and new designs, the biggest change they made is the ease of customization. You can't tell from looking, but in just a matter of minutes I was able to get a completely brand-new look for my site and the best part is it was all done using drag and drop functionality.  EASY!  It literally took me less than 30 minutes to set things up the way I wanted.

Check it out and let me know what you think.  Even if you're just using the site as a back up location for your photos, you'll find the new SmugMug easy to use and a great way to show off your images.

The Golden Hour

In photography, the golden hour (sometimes known as the magic hour) is the first and last hour of sunlight during the day. It's usually about 30 minutes before and after sunrise and the same during sunset. The golden hour will be affected by your location and the time of year, but this is a good rule of thumb. There are great apps out there that will tell you when the golden hour will be based on your location. I'm currently using a really simple one called Photo Hour and find it works pretty well. It tells you when the golden hour starts and ends based on you location. This is particularly useful if you want to sleep until the last possible minute while on vacation, but still want to get up in time to catch the sun rise.

Anyway, the quality light you get during the golden isn't always an issue and today was one of those days for me. I'm spending the weekend in El Dorado Hills, CA and wanted to get up this morning to shoot photos of a really cool bridge i saw in nearby Auburn. So, I got up at 4:45 in the morning and made the 30 minute trek to the bridge. I got there all excited because not only was I going to be able to shot some photos, but I was going to be able to use my tripod and neutral density filters (for the water under the bridge) and I love using my stuff. I got there when the sun was just coming over the ridge. That's when I noticed that this bridge was right next to small mountain and that mountain was blocking the sun.  So, the shot I wanted, of the first morning light shining off this bridge want going to happen. It still was a nice shot and I'm glad I went, but this just proves how helpful scouting out you location is. If I would have gone to check it out the day before and thought about it, I would have realized that the mountain was going to fully block the sun from hitting the bridge.

Image of the bridge taken at the golden hour... However, the mountain blocked the sun from shining its golden light on it.