You knew that was coming, didn’t you? Thought so. You’re so smart – I need to keep you around!

But to do that, you need to follow me over to the new blog. Sound good? I promise, it is. Or, it will be. I’m still working on getting moved in, but you can drop by for a visiting and update your RSS feed while you’re there.

See ya there!

Winters in West Tennessee do not usually involve much of the frosty white stuff.

In 2009, we were bombarded with a foot of snow and felt like we’d never see another snow so great as long as we’d live here. Boy, we were wrong. While we haven’t seen 10-12 inches at a time as we did last March, we have had three snows already with another predicted for Sunday.

At this point, we’re tired of it.

My children were out of school for a day in early January, two days last week and four this week. They are set to return to school in the morning – finally – only to have Monday off for President’s Day. The days off, being off of our usual schedule, is annoying. It’s uncomfortable, it’s unfamiliar. As much as I hate schedules, as much as I detest routine, I’m eager for the familiarity of the everyday to return.

Snow fell on Monday morning and is still blanketing many of the fields.

Snowy fields, snowy barns are beautiful. It’s fun to go sledding for awhile. It’s entertaining to build a snowman and take the requisite photos of the children in the snow. But after that, I’m just ready for it to melt.

I’m ready for school to be in session, for the flowers to bloom. I’m tired of wearing a coat and eagerly awaiting warmer temperatures.

My only problem is Mother Nature. Apparently she’s not getting the message.

When your camera’s in your hand, undoubtedly you want to capture memories. A wonderful day out. A long-awaited event. A child’s milestones. And as you take photos to commemorate these things, are you also capturing the details?

I’m big on details. I want to capture everything, even the little things.

The way a newlywed couple gazes into each others’ eyes, the way they touch lightly and lovingly.

A bride’s flowers, the table settings she’s chosen, the plans she’s been making for months.

Women who still hand quilt.

A convicted murderer apologizing to the victim’s family.

The way a child twirls her hair as she sucks her thumb, a habit her parents may hate but will miss when she’s an adult.

To me, it’s not enough to say a couple is in love, a wedding is beautiful, a titleholder is elegant or a child is sweet; I want to show the ways I know the groom loves his bride, the details that went into making the wedding perfect and fun, whose hands put the quilt together, the way the victim’s father reacted to the apology and what makes the child sweeter than others.

The little things are what make life so memorable, so enjoyable. The same should be true of photographs.

When inspiration hits, you have to run with it. This is what I tell myself.

Last night I was inspired to create printables for Valentine’s Day, card designs that you can print at home. I’ve had so much fun making the All We Need is Love line and now, Owl. He was hatched this afternoon while the washing machine repairman was replacing a part (what can I say, you have to strike while the inspiration is hot). Owl makes me smile! Don’t get me wrong, the birds do too, but Owl is so silly looking. How could you not love him?

Why printables?
When I first began for-hire graphic design work six years ago, I found that offering customers a flat-rate fee for a design and allowing them the option of printing from home or using their favorite photo processor was well-received. Not many were offering the option then, but the Print At Home market has expanded.

For the customer, the PAH option alleviates those annoying minimum orders and gives you more control of the final product; for the designer, it frees up time we’d otherwise spend fulfilling, packaging and shipping print orders.

This translates to savings for you, often in the form of a budget-friendly alternative to traditional greeting cards.

The process
When you place an order for a printables product you will receive a high-resolution digital image file via email.

If you have ordered a photo card, you will either receive an editable Photoshop document (if you have editing capabilities) or a JPEG file (if I edit the file for you, adding your own high-resolution photos to the card). Additionally, you will receive a copyright release which will allow your commercial photo processor to print your image.

When placing your order, please e-mail your high resolution photo (1200 px) and preferred wording to edayphotographyATgmail.com.

I will mock up your design and send you a proof within 24 hours. Once your proof has been approved, you will receive a high resolution 4×6-inch digital file for printing at Walgreens, Walmart, Snapfish, Winkflash or any other photo processor.

I will also send you a low-resolution version of your photo card for emailing and/or posting on social networking sites.

I’ve created small, 2×3.5-inch classroom valentines for the children. These utilize the standard Avery business card templates, which are so easy to use! My husband thinks Owl will be perfect for our 4-year-old this year and my older two children have put in special requests for theirs (monster trucks and hearts), so be on the lookout for more additions to the printables line as we inch closer to Gooey Hearts Day!

My children are adorable, aren’t they? And this photo, well it’s a memento of a great weekend spent with friends and family camping at Hot Springs National Park this past summer – sleeping under the stars with a cool breeze, exploring the creek and its slippery rocks and bonding as a family.

There are wonderful memories attached to this photo, but it isn’t a very good one. The exposure is all wrong.

The sun is behind them so they are not being blinded, but the shadows are too heavy and the highlights too bright. Fixing these mistakes in Photoshop produces a grainy, low contrast image that is poor in quality. It’s quite the disappointment, one I could have avoided if I’d taken a few more second and changed my settings.

Best times to take photos

Often we think of sunny days as optimal when taking photos outdoors, but high noon on a bright day is probably the worst time to take photos in terms of lighting and dodging shadows and squinty eyes. Just say no to the squinty eyes.

A good rule of thumb is to take your photos when your shadow is longer than you are tall.

The best time to take outdoor photos on a sunny day is when the sun is not directly overhead. Depending on what you’re photographing, early morning or late afternoon is best. When your subjects can be moved – people, for instance – either option is good.

Also, shady spots are our friends. The above photo was shot in the shade of a row of evergreens, which blocked the early morning sun (it was 9:30 a.m.). We didn’t use a reflector, fill flash or any other source of light (I’m big on natural lighting).

When your subjects cannot be moved – when you’re photographing a building, a tree – if you want to be able to see it, take the photo when the subject is not being backlit by the sun.

Overcast days would be the exception to the rule, however. (There’s always an exception, right?) Clouds are also our friends because they naturally diffuse sunlight. These types of days are great for close-up portraits in addition to photos of flowers and insects and any photo that doesn’t include the sky in the shot.

On heavily overcast days, you may also need to compensate for exposure values.

Check back for more quick tips on exposure! Later this week I’ll be posting more on exposure on sunny days. Other quick tips can be found here.

Our inaugural photo comes from my good friend Christa who, after playing more with her settings Saturday, took this wonderful photo of icicles dangling elegantly from an evergreen. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words and this one speaks of the beauty of unexpected snow days and the wonder of God’s creation.

Christa did a great job capturing the tones of the sunset, its reflection on the sparkly, icy snow and the ice on the evergreen in the bottom right corner. Art should have movement and this photo does; the snow looks as if it was poured onto the boughs and it is almost as if we’re watching as it slowly melts, forming the icicles. These evergreen boughs are not sturdy, they do not hold weight well, and yet they are able to hold the mixture of snow and ice without breaking.

Her focus is sharp, too, which is important when photographing icicles.

I read Christa’s blog entry, The Handiwork of God, just after she shot this and I know she was very pleased with herself. And she should be, because this photo is beautiful.

Here in the South, snow closes the roads, schools, businesses and churches. After having been cooped up in the house with her family all day, she stole a few minutes for a walk in the snow with her camera.

“When I shot it I was standing in at least 6 inches of snow wearing my husband’s clothes and shoes,” she says. “I was feeling particularly artsy and wanting to capture things the way I was seeing them.”

This shows it doesn’t take expensive equipment to capture great photos, either. Christa shot this with a point-and-shoot camera, not a dSLR.

“My camera is a Canon PowerShot, SD1200IS to be exact. I was playing around with the settings; I changed my exposure to -1.5 it also has this setting where you can change it to macro for up close so I changed it to that,” she said. “It was set on ISO 1600, too.”

For Christa, the photo is not just another memory from an ice and snow storm.

“This photo to me, is proof of not only God’s existence, but also His creativity,” says Christa. “I mean, I know that lots of places have snow all the time, but for this Cali girl, it is soooo beautiful.”

If you would like to submit a photo you’ve taken for the Photo of the Week feature, or nominate a photo you’ve seen, email me at edayphotographyATgmail.com.

When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator. – Mahatma Gandhi

Seeing the sun rise and fall over the fields made me fall in love with West Tennessee. It is so prevalent here, the sun, and when I lived with my parents I always had a wonderful view of its beauty. The balcony from the upstairs area is a wonderful place to enjoy the sun painting the sky with reds, oranges and yellows. In a word, it is breathtaking. And it is humbling.

I’m now surrounded by trees and leaving those sunrises saddens me. I never see them anymore. Sometimes I am lucky enough to be in the right spot for sunsets, though. A farm about a mile from our home is a great place to watch the sun become orange and the sky purple with closure.

Today I had the great fortune of visiting friends and as we were saying our goodbyes, the sun did as well.

I steadied my camera on the broken front end of our plastic sled, which was standing upright in the hard, icy snow, and shot the most beautiful sunset I have ever captured. I love the tones. I love the way the trees silhouette against the soothing purple and the fiery orange. I love the focus. And I love the memory of this day, a relaxed and wonderful afternoon spent with great friends.

It was a beautiful end to a wonderful day.

And also a great time to use negative exposure compensation. I dialed this one down to -2 and made sure to keep the camera still, which is important any time you are working in low light. The shutter, if set correctly, will stay open longer to absorb all available light; if the camera is not on a tripod of some sort, you will likely end up with a blurry photo.

I invite you to try it on your own tomorrow. If you have a dSLR, take it off of Auto mode and switch it to Aperture Priority, then experiment until you have a photo you love. If you’re using a point & shoot camera, you can experiment with different exposure settings as well. I invite you to share them with me, too! Leave me a comment with a link to your photos so I can check them out!

I was hoping to get some sunny snow day shots, but apparently Mother Nature had other plans in mind. Instead, we’ll look more at setting your camera straight on overcast days.

To show you the difference compensation can make on a snow day, here are a few examples. These photos were taken within seconds of each other, in the same light.

I shot these with my Nikon D5000 and have the option of going to -/+5 at .3 intervals. Each camera is different, however; my Canon Digital Rebel XTi only goes to -/+2.

Remember that positive compensation allows more light in (overexposing) and negative compensation allows less light (underexposing). You would use negative compensation in dim light, such as a sunset.

Depending on your camera and the shooting mode, exposure compensation may change your aperture and maintain your shutter speed, may maintain your aperture setting and change your shutter speed or both.

If you don’t master exposure, you can attempt to correct it in photo editing software, though this can leave you with grainy photos. Plus, it’s always a great idea to try to get it as close to perfect when you take it so you’re not spending so much time editing. Photography is like anything else: if you do what you’re supposed to do initially, it’ll save you from having to do so much legwork later.

I know what you’re saying: If the key to getting great snow photos is overexposing them, then why not just change your ISO setting?

ISO settings refer back to film speed and even though you’re likely using a digital camera, these settings work in the same way. ISO determines how sensitive the image sensor is to light; the higher the ISO setting, the more light.

Changing your ISO setting – increasing it – makes photos lighter but brings a lot of noise to your photos, too. When you want to print them larger, the noise is evident. And trust me, you don’t want noise.

Now go bundle up and experiment! Don’t forget to charge your batteries and protect your camera.

Tomorrow will likely be a snow day across much of the United States, which means those of us in the South (hello, Volunteer State!) and the Southeast (I’m looking at you, Virginia) who rarely see snow will be layering up and heading outside to play.

And many of you will tote a camera with you to capture the nostalgia that is this frozen precipitation.Before you go, check out a few tips for taking photos in the snow:

Charge your batteries
Nothing zaps a battery faster than cold weather! Make sure your batteries are fully charged before trudging out in the cooler temperatures, because once you get all bundled up you probably don’t want to go back in until you’re numb.

Protect your camera
Many photographers recommend protecting your camera from the sleet and snow by putting it inside a plastic zip-top bag. This will prevent your lens and camera body from getting wet; water droplets cause blurry photos and damaged cameras. If you’d like, cut a hole in the bottom of the bag large enough for your lens or lens hood so the plastic doesn’t affect your focus.

Use your camera strap – you’d hate to drop it, especially when it’s snowing.

To reduce condensation in your lens and viewfinder, your camera needs to acclimate. When you’re ready to come back inside, leave it in the garage or in your pocket for 30 minutes, then bring it inside. Unless you are using your camera’s internal memory, you can remove your memory card and download and edit your photos while you wait to bring the camera back inside.

Exposure
Ever notice that our cameras often translate white snow as gray or blue in color on an overcast day? This is because your camera is automatically preventing an overexposure, believing your subject to be an item on the gray scale being brightly lit.

To avoid this, simply adjust your camera’s exposure compensation. Start with +1, then experiment to see which setting (+1, +1.5, +2) works best for your conditions.

Consult your camera’s user manual for directions on making this adjustment, though this is usually labeled in the settings menu or like this: +/-.

Don’t worry if you don’t exactly nail it on the first try, you can always adjust the exposure using photo editing software.

When you’re shooting the requisite photo of your house covered in snow, try to do it as close to mid-morning possible because the colors are more subdued and true. The light can be too bright in full sun or can be too warm at sunset, casting a reddish hue over your subjects.

Use your camera’s built-in flash, even in bright sunlight, for fill flash to reduce shadows over faces.

Other tips
Vivid colors pop against snow. They can also be enhanced using a photo editor.

Use your camera’s action or sports setting when your subjects are sledding or making snow angels. If you don’t, they’ll likely be blurry.

Great creative with different perspectives.

Wear gloves to keep your hands warm; your best bet is thin or fingerless gloves as thick ones will reduce your dexterity and may be slippery on the shutter release button.

Most of all, have fun, stay warm and enjoy the snow! And don’t forget the hot cocoa.

Let’s face it, photographing babies and children is tough! Here are 21 tips to ensure you get the perfect snapshot of your child.

General Photography Tips

1. Use a tripod to steady the camera. This also helps in making sure your photos are in focus.

2. If you are using a digital camera, make sure it is on the highest resolution setting.

3. If you are using a 35mm camera, use 200 speed film. Film that is 400 or 800 speed tends to produce grainy photos.

4. Use natural light, if possible. If you can’t take your photos outside, try to photograph your baby near a window that lets in a lot of sunlight. You can use a mirror to reflect the light if you wish. If these things are not options for you, make sure you have a good flash so your pictures aren’t dark.

5. Get as close as you can, while still keeping the photo in focus.

6. Be as quick as possible. Keep your photo shoot short so you don’t exhaust your baby (or your nerves). Set things up before you put the baby in the photo.

7. Use solid-colored backgrounds or blankets when possible. Remember to keep things simple.

8. Take lots of photos! The perfect photo probably won’t happen immediately.

9. Start by photographing your baby at eye level, then try a few different angles to see what you like best.

10. Make sure your batteries are charged!

11. Keep your camera on you at all times. You never know when the right photo opportunity will arise!

Photographing Your Baby

1. Make your baby comfortable. Make sure the baby isn’t hungry, has a clean diaper, and comfortable clothing. Uncomfortable babies generally take lousy photos.

2. Capture your baby’s personality if you can. If she smiles or lifts her head, try to photograph her doing these things.

3. Sleeping babies are precious, and pictures of them make lovely announcements!

4. If there are older children in the house, photograph their interaction with the baby. Don’t force them to participate, however, as you might end up with unhappy children throwing tantrums.

5. Remember, it’s not important that your baby is smiling. If you can get a smile, great.

Photographing Toddlers and Older Children

1. Let them rule the shoot and do what they are comfortable doing. Most children get frustrated with sitting still. More often than not, the candid photos are better than posed studio portraits.

2. Use props and/or toys for your child to hold.

3. Make silly noises and faces if you want your child to laugh, smile, and look at the camera. Use a toy to show them which direction they should look.

4. Use your outside environment to your advantage. Is it raining? Dress your child up in rain gear and let him splash in the puddles or gather raindrops on his tongue. If it’s nice out, take him to feed the ducks or to the park to play.

5. If all else fails, bribe them!

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Copyright 2005-2010. Echo Day.