My Friend Annie..

I have A LOT of catching up to do..
One of the reasons why I shut this thing down before the holidays.
Backed up.
(I’ve yet to unload pix from Lynn’s baptism and that was three weeks ago!!)
Before life got crazy, I got to spend the day with my good friend Annie, who is 30 now, by the way..  she is such a great lady!  Such an example to me.  She has such strength and grace.  She is a fantastic mother.  She is so spunky and fun to be around.  My girls love it when she comes because 1) She brings her kids with her, and they adore her kids..  and 2) She ALWAYS has some sort of fun prize for them.
We also enjoyed Sawyer taking his first “real” steps.  Who would have thought that a lens cap would be such incentive?
Happy Birthday Annie!!!
(A late one at that, but it doesn’t mean that I love you any less!!)

What works for me..

Had a question from Adie about capturing kiddos.

This is what works for me:

The older kids, I can, sometimes, pay.  This is a tip a friend found on another blog.  The mom there, figured that she would be paying a pro to take pics, so why not pay her kids so she could get good ones of them?  That works for me, with my oldest…  sometimes.

I am not above bribery. 

After having my mom and dad gift me lenses that I was already saving for, I took the saved money and bought prizes for my girls.  When I have assignments to do, I will bribe them with a trip to my own little store, where they get immediate gratification.  This time of the year, the currency is popsicles.

Ashley has proven to be my best little subject lately, and she usually does it just to ham it up.  She will usually forget all about the possible incentive.

See..  she’s a ham.

On the technical side, my only tips are to increase that shutter speed and shoot in burst mode, so your camera can keep firing during those active moments that kids are awesome at.  After you shoot a few hundred shots (I am only half kidding there), go pick your favs.  It is better to fire away and get a few to sort through, then wait for that perfect shot of them and miss getting it.  I can’t tell you how many I shot of Lynn on her bike.  There were many to choose from , but I was able to choose, I wasn’t stuck.

I caught Peyton being silly in this candid moment thanks to my zoom lens.

I really enjoy getting more candid shots of my kids, and that is why I love my zoom lens so much!  I can be farther away from them, just observing them, not in their faces to where they know what I am doing.  I get great, un-posed natural shots of them having fun that way.

I have also learned to loosen up about it all.  If I am driven and get to focused in it, then it isn’t fun for them anymore and they start to run away from me.  If I am having fun, just going with it, then they do too.  It also helps me, to let them choose some poses, so they feel like they are a part of it all, that I am not telling them how to do it.

Ashley loves to choose her poses…

Another part of that is to play and experiment yourself.  If you are mixing-it-up, you can get some awesome shots that you never would have expected to get if you didn’t step out of your comfort zone.  By that, I mean to adjust your white balance, play with your different picture and color modes.  PLAY!!

 

 

Hope that helps!  Can’t wait to see what you do!