{"id":27483,"date":"2018-11-20T19:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T03:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/?p=27483"},"modified":"2018-11-20T15:51:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T23:51:25","slug":"tutorial-tuesday-photographing-your-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/2018\/11\/tutorial-tuesday-photographing-your-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"Tutorial Tuesday (Photographing Your Memories)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Let&#8217;s All Give Thanks&#8230; for AWESOME Photos!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-27484\" src=\"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/GS_blog_TeachYouIWill_Header-2-500x17.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"17\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/GS_blog_TeachYouIWill_Header-2-500x17.jpg 500w, https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/GS_blog_TeachYouIWill_Header-2-768x26.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/GS_blog_TeachYouIWill_Header-2.jpg 783w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hey y&#8217;all! Life&#8217;s about to get VERY hectic for a lot of you, am I right?? In the United States, Thanksgiving marks the run-up to Christmas and then the New Year. I know most of you won&#8217;t be even thinking about scrapping layouts for the next several days, and that you&#8217;ll be making a bunch of new memories at the same time. We&#8217;ve played with a lot of techniques for editing our photos to make them worthy of scrapping, but why not skip a step (or ten)? I think it&#8217;s time for another discussion about taking better photos. I know we&#8217;ve already <a href=\"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/2017\/08\/tutorial-tuesday-a-little-departure\/\"><strong>talked about that before<\/strong><\/a>, but a few reminders probably won&#8217;t go amiss. Whether your photos are caught with a point-and-shoot, a high-end DSLR or a cell phone, there are some things you can do to get great photos.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Right now, <strong>right this minute<\/strong>, make sure your camera battery is fully charged. If they&#8217;re replaceable batteries, put fresh ones in your camera NOW!<\/li>\n<li>Make sure you have an empty memory card (fully formatted, of course!) in your camera and a couple of spares so you won&#8217;t run out of space. If you&#8217;re using your phone, you should move some photos from your internal storage to your computer so you&#8217;ll have room for the new ones.<\/li>\n<li>Think about how your typical holiday events usually evolve. There will be some traditions that are carried out no matter whose house you&#8217;re having the celebrations at, so plan ahead to capture those moments. Make a list, if you need to.<\/li>\n<li>If you haven&#8217;t done it lately, review the manual that came with your camera. Review the settings and modes you&#8217;re most likely to use for your shots and remind yourself what each is doing while you&#8217;re shooting. I use the metadata from my most successful bokeh and full moon shots to set my camera up ahead of time so I don&#8217;t miss the shot.<\/li>\n<li>Practice a few creative techniques that you can memorize so that when you&#8217;re ready to take photos of the candles on your dinner table or that gloriously brown turkey, you won&#8217;t have to fumble.<\/li>\n<li>Refamiliarize yourself with your tripod, if you use one. I have two &#8211; an aluminum ball-head one that allows infinite adjustments but takes a lot of room and needs to be set up ahead of time and a <a href=\"https:\/\/platypod.com\/tripods\/max\"><strong>Platypod Max<\/strong><\/a>, which looks like a little travel iron but is actually a very clever and sturdy tripod that can be set up in minutes on any surface. Why use a tripod? It lets you take longer exposures while keeping the images tack-sharp and it lets you be in the photo! Use the built-in timer and get in FRONT of the lens for a change.<\/li>\n<li>Keep an eye on the lighting. Natural light from a big window is fantastic, as long as it&#8217;s not backlighting your subject. This is especially important for those group shots we all love. You want everyone&#8217;s face to be evenly lit, without harsh shadows everywhere. So maybe turn on some lamps so your flash won&#8217;t be so startling. Shoot a couple of test shots so you can see what needs to be tweaked.<\/li>\n<li>Get in close to your subject! Even more so when that subject is a child. Get down on their level whenever possible so you capture their best smiles. Shooting from above should be reserved for those special-effect shots, not photos of kids having fun. For the most natural photos of people though, you can use a telephoto lens and shoot them from some distance. (As long as the light is right!)<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t insist on smiles. You know what I mean&#8230; those cheesy grins aren&#8217;t going to be your favourite images. Rather than having everybody say &#8220;cheese&#8221; for your group shots, have them say &#8220;family&#8221; or &#8220;money&#8221; or &#8220;gotcha&#8221;. You could go with a made-up phrase, such as &#8220;moldy mozzarella&#8221;. Another trick is to tell everyone you&#8217;re going to shoot on &#8220;3&#8221;, then count, &#8220;1&#8230; 2&#8230; (shoot) WHOOPS 3!&#8221; then shoot a second shot right after that. You&#8217;ll get some natural smiles that way.<\/li>\n<li>When taking photos of food, again, get in close and vary the angles. Show the flaky texture of that piecrust, the glisten of the done-to-perfection skin on your turkey, the creaminess of your mashed potatoes, the detail of the frosting on your cupcakes.<\/li>\n<li>Composition is key for any photo. Remember the rule of thirds, but don&#8217;t be a slave to it. Decide what your focal point will be and compose your photo to make it so &#8211; use leading lines where possible and don&#8217;t forget white space. Crop your photos in the viewfinder &#8211; so much less work later! And don&#8217;t forget the background. Is there anything growing out of someone&#8217;s head? Take a step to one side or the other and recompose.<\/li>\n<li>Take LOTS of photos. Take several of each subject from different angles and distances so you have a choice of which one is best. More is definitely better!<\/li>\n<li>Last but not least, have FUN!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When we&#8217;re all back into scrapping mode, I&#8217;ll have some more paper-to-digi techniques for you. This decluttering business is really a good thing!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-27485\" src=\"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/GS_footer_Jan-2-500x19.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"19\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/GS_footer_Jan-2-500x19.jpg 500w, https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/GS_footer_Jan-2-575x22.jpg 575w, https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/GS_footer_Jan-2.jpg 586w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s All Give Thanks&#8230; for AWESOME Photos! Hey y&#8217;all! Life&#8217;s about to get VERY hectic for a lot of you, am I right?? In the United States, Thanksgiving marks the run-up to Christmas and then the New Year. I know most of you won&#8217;t be even thinking about scrapping layouts for the next several days, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[288,88,62],"tags":[373],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-21 01:07:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"private","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27483"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27487,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27483\/revisions\/27487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}