Taking Great Pictures of Your Kids.
Save Time and Money! Plus, Make Money Taking Pictures of Other People’s Kids!
We all know how expensive family portraits can be. We also know how time consuming it is to find a photographer in your area, who is good at what they do. Once we get the money part and the time part figured out, the kids are sick or fussy on the day of the appointment!
So, what can you do? You can learn to take your own portraits at home. This might sound complicated at first, but really it is not that hard to learn. As long as you have a digital camera, you are off to a great start.
I’m sure you are thinking, what am I going to use as a background for the portraits? Almost anything will work for a background. A white wall, a sheet hung by tacks or a curtain rod, a room divider, a blanket, a large poster, an area rug, are all great to use as a background. Always place your child at least 4 to 5 feet in front of the background. This will keep unwanted shadows of the background and will make the child stand out.
Lighting is about the most difficult to learn, but I will show you simple ways to get it accomplished. First of all, turn off your camera flash. It creates to harsh of lighting, and makes for very unflattering photos.
If you have a large window that lets in a lot of sun, you can pose your child in front of it. Just be sure to turn the child only three-quarters of the way to face the window. This will light up most of his/her face and leave the other side in shadows. Doing this will make for a more flattering picture. However, only use window lighting on a cloudy day, early or late in the day. You do not want to use direct sunlight coming from the window, it is almost like using a flash! Of course if you have some sheers hung on the window to diffuse the sunlight, than you may use it at anytime of the day.
For those of you that do not have a good window to use, I recommend shop lights (unless you can afford strobe lights, but they are more for proffesional use). Halogen shop lights (the type with two lights on a stand) run about $20.00. They are excellent for portrait lighting. Set them up about 5 feet in front of where your child will be sitting, and slightly to the side and above your child. Then hang a white sheet about 1 foot in front of the lights. This will diffuse the lights and give them a soft glowing effect.
If you would rather take pictures outdoors, here are a few tips. Make sure that you find an uncluttered background. Grass, sky, hills all work well. You can even use trees, but pay attention that there is not going to be one that looks as though it is sticking out of your child’s head in the picture. As with photographing by the window, never take a portrait of your child in direct sunlight. It will create harsh shadows and make for a very unflattering picture. Overcast days, dawn or dusk are usually great times. If that is not possible, have your child stand in the shade of a few trees or a building. Just remember to make sure there are no strange shadows on their face.
(By the way, the shop lights get very hot, so keep little fingers away and don’t get your diffusing sheet too close.)
One more tip ! Make sure you zoom in to get more of your child and less of the background.
Once you get the hang of this with your kids, you can start making money taking pictures of your friends kids!
I hope this article helped you out. For lots more information on photography please click this link http://www.geocities.com/torie508/PhotographyBusiness.html
Taking Great Pictures of your Kids. Make Money Taking Pictures of Other Peopl's Kids
Online Photo Stamps – Print Stamps From Your Home
Most people keep a book of stamps in a drawer somewhere at home because you'll never know when you might need them! The trouble is that you often loose track of just how many stamps you have left, and its all too easy to run out of stamps at any given point in time, especially when you have a truckload of bills to send out. When you want to send by post, it's very annoying to find out that you dont have any stamps left! Especially if the post office is closed!
Thanks to the internet it is possible to get around this oversight, and Im not talking about email. The United States Postal Service has come up with a system which allows people to print their own postage stamps in the comfort of their own home!
This is the perfect solution for those people that have hectic lives!
You can buy two types of postage stamps online, regular online postage stamps and photo stamps. We will consider both of these within this article.
Regular and Online Photo Stamps
Whenever you go to the post office to buy a stamp you are buying a boring, standard postage stamp. These are normally red in color, there is no option to customize the stamp before you purchase it other than the options they may give you. This has become popular on the internet as well. You can just order a regular 1st class stamp for example and then print it off using your own printer.
You can have much more fun with your stamps these days, when you buy them online than when you just go to the post office to buy them. You can decorate, preview, and print your stamps all from the comfort of your own home. You are able to upload any photo (within reason) and then use this as part of your postage stamp as well. How convienant is that?
International Photo Stamps
These stamps aren't just restricted to domestic use, they can be used to send you mail internationally. They are perfect to use for many different special occasions, such as weddings, births, anniversaries and even birthdays! Photo stamps are addictive! Once youve started using them youll never want to go back to using regular postage stamps, they're just so boring in comparison! And lets face it, they weren't that exciting before we had photo stamps!
How Can I Print Photo Stamps?
Companies that wish to sell online stamps must apply to the USPS for permission. These authorized vendors will generally provide a piece of software to users which can be used to generate stamps, this software is invaluable to customize your stamps.
You dont need any additional graphics editing software because most of these pieces of software allow editing and cropping of your images so that theyre suitable for your postage stamp.
There is normally a minimum order of one sheet of stamps, this sheet contains 20 stamps of whatever denomination you choose. You should buy the denomination of stamp that you will use the most of when sending post, for most people this will be 37 cents first class stamp.
Online postage stamps have made it so much easier to send snail mail, its very useful for businesses as they are able to keep a log of their use, plus they can buy postage as and when they need it rather than having to shell out so much for regular postage stamps and honestly....its just so much more convienant.
By: gamerentalguide
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Interested in printing online postage stamps or online photo stamps? Before you do, check out our rebate offers at discountstampsonline.com.
How to Take Big Suns in Photography
By: Jan Linden
Sure, these pictures may border on cliches, but they are cliches that never fail to grab us. We're all suckers for that frame-filling drama of Ol' Sol looming large on the horizon.
And we all know how to get those shots of big suns - just shoot the horizon with that fabulously expensive, super-speed, extralow-dispersion glass, apochromatic tele, right?
Wrong. You need a long lens, sure, but it needn't be a budget buster. Some very good 500mm mirror lenses come in under $200, store price. There are all-glass 400mm, 500mm, and 600mm designs from major independents that sell for $300-500. And you can make an existing tele longer by using a teleconverter. That fine 300mm f/4 you bought for nature work, for example, can be converted to a 600mm f/8 with a 2X converter. That's a pretty good focal length for big suns. Using a 3X converter will make a 900mm f/12, and so on.
Besides a tele, you need a sturdy tripod - flimsy travel models need not apply. For one thing, focusing and framing through a long tele is far easier if the rig is well supported. For another thing, even a little shake can blur a long-tele shot.
A spot or limited-area meter helps, although it is not essential. An overall meter reading with an SLR will generally be far too high, resulting in a shot that's too dark - even if the desired effect is a silhouette. Most big-sun shooters use the strategy of spotmetering an area of the sky near but not immediately adjacent to the sun - an area in which some sky tone appears. This will give you a silhouette reading that will still maintain a little shadow detail.
And how do you focus and compose with that big burning disk staring you right in the eye? First, if everything in your frame is a long distance from the camera, setting the lens to infinity is the easiest way to focus without being dazzled. Otherwise, you may prefocuse the camera with the sun just out of the frame. You can often recompose the scene by holding your eye a little away from the finder to avoid being temporarily blinded by the sun.
The best big-sun shots are the ones that don't rely solely on the sun; the big sun, in fact, is best used as a background. The landscape, the harbor scene, the city skyline - each picture should stand on its own for it to work with a big sun behind it.
There is a pitfall here, though. Even with objects at a far distance, they can still be out of the plane of focus of the sun, due to the effective shallow depth of long lenses. Generally, the sun can stand to be a little soft, so try focusing on the nearest large object in the composition. Also, use small apertures and check the depth-of-field preview.
Big-sun shots can, on occasion, be surprisingly colorless; the sky around the sun can range from blank white to dull gray. A filter is called for here, from the standard warming (81A and similar) for a warm sky tone, to amber for richer color, to full orange for an exaggerated effect.
About The Author
Jan Linden is a professional photographer and designer runshttp://www.photos4interior.com/
Learn How To Develop Your Technical Skills In Nature Photography
Photography is the art of creating a special medium beyond your self-expression. It requires good taste, good sense of appreciation and technical skills in capturing the subjects. Many believe that they can profit in this chosen field as long as they develop their technical skills and knowledge in becoming a talented professional photographer.
Nature photography has always been inspiring and exciting. It thrills every photographer with its mystery and the beauty of wildlife.
One of the most amusing subjects for nature photographers are the birds.
Bird behavior has had great impact on pictures. Birds attract many photographers with their mastery of flight and their distinct diversity in nature.
Here are some guides that will help you focus on improving your skill in capturing images on these magnificent creatures of nature.
1. You need to know what interests your mind. You have to know your topics so that you will not be confused. You should learn more about birds by investing on a good birding guide. This will help you know more about their behavior, breeding season, and bird eating habits.
2. You should always keep your subjects well being in mind. Avoid those instances that create stress on your images. If the bird is not in its natural behavioral characteristic, you should leave the bird alone and allow the bird to recover first from its stress.
It can also be a sign that the bird might be nesting eggs somewhere near the site and that is why it portrays a “predator luring” behavior.
3. You should make your vehicle as your just like your camera an accessory. In some areas, you may see birds more adapted to vehicles and consider your vehicle less harmless than a person positioned on his tripod trying to take a good shot. You should learn how to be patient in finding the right place where the birds can accept the presence of your vehicle.
4. You may use fast shutter speeds cameras. This device is good in taking great bird images. Most birds are fast and can disappear quickly in the air. You may need a 1/500 second shuttering speed. This can capture sudden movements and flights.
As a nature photographer, you should maximize your surroundings. A good place for you to start your hobby in nature photography especially with birds is in your own backyard.
You can then practice the art and techniques of capturing great shots and wonderful images that nature has to offer.
By: David Douglas
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com