I’m very happy to say that this week’s post of tips and advice has reached a wider audience than my regular ones.
My guest post for the great Digital Photography School is now up: “6 Steps to Take ‘Guerilla’ Photos of your Children”
It looks at how sometimes the best photos of your kids come from a casual approach and having the camera handy
Check it out over there, and thanks to the DPS folks for publishing my post.
As you may know, in addition to my family and children’s photography work, I’m also a web designer. Juggling this combination has been tricky at times, and it’s felt like I’ve not given the photography side of the business the attention it’s deserved.
So after a particularly busy year of web work that’s left me tired and not very happy, I’ve decided that it’s time to commit myself and my time more fully to the photography.
Simply put, my aim is that there should be more good family and children’s portraits in the world. And here’s how I think I can help, in my small way:
There’ll be other things happening too, including a new look and structure for the website – but that’s the overall plan.
As I carry out this shift, I’ll also be blogging about the move from being less than happily self-employed to what I hope will be a more considered and self-fulfilled way of doing things. You can follow my progress (complete with lots of my photographs) over at When If Not Now.
A photo from when the trip was a vacation: Glendalough, Co. Wicklow.As you’re probably aware, a malicious Icelandic volcanic ash cloud has gummed up the works good and proper over here in Europe. No flights across 20 countries since Thursday. We’re supposed to leave Dublin tomorrow (Monday) but our flight’s one of the many that just never happened.
We’re rebooked on Thursday, but it’s anyone’s guess at this stage if that flight’s going anywhere either.
It sounds nice to be forced to stay longer, but it’s not a vacation if you can’t go home. Especially if you’re traveling with a four year old.
We’ve scored some accommodation for the next couple of nights, and I’ll have internet access intermittently for emergency work, but if you could send happy thoughts my way (and tell Aer Lingus to offer some actual customer service) that would be nice.
Santa Fe might not have been as hard hit as some parts of the US, but the recession hasn’t left us entirely alone. These pictures were taken on a walk around the downtown area yesterday.
Just a quick update on my whereabouts: back in Santa Fe after a Thanksgiving trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Above (and below) are shots from the California Academy of Sciences – a great place to visit with kids of all sorts of ages.
We stopped in at the beach in Half Moon Bay, too (as you can see), but for some reason I didn’t get too many shots of San Francisco itself. Go figure.
If you’re taking pictures of boys, you have to move fast. The brothers I did a portrait shoot of recently in White Rock were no exception – aged nearly five and seven, they were chasing around like mad, clambering over boulders and not very interested in me at all.
Which is how I like it. We’d chosen the crags at White Rock as their family likes to climb, and giving the boys space to be themselves seemed a much better idea than cramming them into smart clothes and a studio.
Sorting through the images from the Open House day at Tumbledown Gymnastics studio yesterday. Had a great day, and here are some sneak peeks.
Like many people, I’ve been using Chase Jarvis’ cool Best Camera app for processing and sharing photos taken on my iPhone.
One of the export options is to upload the image to the Best Camera site, where there’s a running stream of uploads in real time from everyone using the application. It’s very cool in itself, but there’s also the option to view and vote on the ones you like.
Out of this a Best Photos list is created, and I’m happy to say that the picture you see above (taken while walking our dog from the office one day) has been happily esconced in the Best list for the last few days, and has had well over 200 views.
You can see more of my iPhone shots in this set on my Flickr page.
I’m delighted to announce the launch of our latest website – it’s for Jeff Henig, an American travel photographer based in Japan, who specializes in shooting cultural and religious festivals across Asia. You can check it out at www.jeffhenig.com.
When Jeff first contacted me, he had a blog in one location, a Flash-based portfolio online somewhere else, and a Photoshelter site for his stock archive. He was doing a good job keeping them all up to date, but each had a different look and feel, and navigating between them was confusing for visitors.
Just finished a quick audio slideshow which outlines my approach to children’s portrait photography.
It’s called ‘No Posing, No Costumes’, and it will eventually live in an expanded part of the Services section of the site, but I wanted to post it now, while it was still hot from the Soundslides Export.
I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to share/link and all that.
