Let me start by saying that while I have learned a LOT about taking photos in the past 3 years, I am by no means an expert. I’m not even a photographer, since my eyes glaze over when people start talking ISO and shutter speed. The only part of photography I actually understand is aperture, and even then I only know a small number means I get a fuzzy background and that looks fancy so, like, do that? Right?

But after owning a Nikon D90 for a while and reading a zillion articles and books and tutorials I feel like I’m qualified to give 5 tips for taking great photos even if you don’t know what you’re doing. And the top 5 things I’ve learned about photography DON’T involve super fancy camera settings or post-processing. Photoshop and Lightroom are amazing programs but if your main goal is to take better pictures of your kids – either for your blog or just for their scrapbooks – you don’t need editing software. I promise. Just be more mindful of the following things when you’re snapping away:

1. Use natural light. It’s all about the light. Yes, your camera has a flash and no, I’m not saying flash is evil. Skilled photographers can do amazing things with artificial light. But when I use flash, everyone comes out looking like a deer in the headlights and/or a flesh eating zombie so I take advantage of natural light whenever possible. I don’t mean direct sunlight – it can often be too harsh – but light coming through a window, a shady spot under a tree or that magical golden hour right before sunset are all better places to take you kid’s monthly baby photos than under your ceiling fan lights at 8 pm. (This goes DOUBLE for photos of food.)

August, 6pm – the light is behind the trees so even though Caroline is backlit it’s the nice halo-type of backlit. Plus it shows of her ginger curls in a way head-on light wouldn’t.

2. Pick a great location. My couch is moss green, filthy and makes a terrible backdrop for photos. My kitchen is OK but the dark counters and wood cabinets make it a cave. The rest of my home is always a mess. But the park less than a mile from my house is gorgeous – stone pathways, arbors, fountains, lots of shade, space for playing and running and bikes. I’m not capturing our “everyday” in the sense that we are in our house but I am capturing a typical afternoon in our neighborhood. It’s easy to bring the camera along, sit in the grass and let the gingers run in circles while I mess with my settings. Having a great location makes all the rest of the tips MUCH easier.

This was spontaneous wish-making…something that wouldn’t ever happen at home in our family room.

3. Pay attention to your background. This is why you’re shooting at the park instead of in your house (as cute as my tiny gingers are in those photos, the background prevents them from ever becoming prints I hang on the wall). But it also means take three steps to your left to avoid capturing that trashcan or people scooping dog poop or a couple having a fight behind your kid (all actual things I avoided during this shoot). Even if you are in your house, do your best to get blank walls, plain cabinets and doors in the background rather than piles of brightly colored toys and laundry. You can crop in post-processing – even basic, free programs allow cropping – but these are tips for AVOIDING all of that so try to remember to look behind your kid’s adorable face.

Things going on around Evan that you can’t see because I framed the photo well – trash can, people fishing, teenagers loitering and smoking and doing general annoying teenagery things.

There were some people sitting on the edge of the fountain at first, so I took close up shots until they wandered off. Then I backed up and let Evan throw his penny.

4. Children looking at the camera are better than children not looking at the camera. I should have just called this tip “Bribery”, but that seemed crass. I take a LOT of pictures of the backs of heads, butts, shoes, etc. But when you’re trying to take memorable photos, try to get your kid’s face as much as possible. Some of the best ways to get a child to look at you are shouting, waving your arms, playing “Can you see my eye through this camera?” and promising candy/ice cream/ponies. Mostly it’s a matter of following step number 5…

As cute as Caroline’s ruffle skirt is, her “leader of the tiny bike gang” face is way cuter. (Although, technically, the composition of the facing away photo is better…BIKE GANG. I MEAN COME ON.)

5. More is more. As long as you’re shooting digital, keep shooting. At a photography class just a couple weeks ago one of the pros told us to STOP taking so many photos and really focus on getting the shots right the first time. I am definitely going to work on that…soon-ish. But if you aren’t a pro, my advice is take tons of pictures, especially of kids. You might only get a few worth saving but that’s the magic of digital – delete, delete, delete. When your kid is running away from you, shout their name and start snapping – those just-turning-around faces are great and you almost always get eye contact. The same goes for jumping, swinging, splashing, dancing, and running kids – it’s better to have too many shots to choose from than miss a moment you loved.

Dancing kids are hard to keep in focus but too cute to miss, so I took at least 30 pictures in 60 seconds.

Swinging pictures are even harder than dancing pictures (plus the light on the playground wasn’t as good) but I got this one from a collection of many.

I’m not saying you’re going to get magazine-worthy photos from your point-and-shoot or your cell phone camera, but I wish I had known all this stuff from the beginning when I was taking pictures of Baby Evan with my Panasonic. Just remembering to set the baby down somewhere without burp cloths in the background would have made a huge difference.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I’ll try to help or find someone to help. And feel free to link photo tips that you’ve found helpful (or written!) in the comments.

All my photos in the post are straight out of my camera (Nikon D90, 50mm 1.8f lens) – no cropping, no exposure changes, no editing. All I did was watermark and resize the files for uploading. I did use my camera’s manual settings when I shot but I do that fairly often now and still don’t get great results. These photos look nice because I took them mindfully, not because I have amazing technical skills with a DSLR. 

At BlogHer, Kim and I made slightly tipsy plans to get together in real life as soon as possible. Amazingly, we actually DID and our kids are new BFF’s. We’re doing it again in a week, this time at her place.

Actual BlogHer photo recap to come, since I took 700 pictures in 4 days (and my phone was totally dead by Sparklecorn so THOSE photos taken by other people will come even later)(although some of THOSE photos are going in my private never-to-see-the-light-of-day file).

Sunday:

As if I needed to point for you to see that giant canyon I have between my eyebrows. Maybe Botox wants to sponsor me.

Captain(s) Evan

I love a man who reads to his kids

Monday:

Every trip to Target starts with the kids BEGGING to take this cart and ends with them screaming at me to get out

Mommy’s little helper

Cuddlesssssss

Tuesday:

Caroline’s list of demands for BlogHer: Pony, Minnie Mouse, candy, dolly.

Mommy, I need balls! Balls, mommy! (for the cannon, obvs)

Library play time

Wednesday:

Waiting at the train station to send me off

Riding in a cab makes me feel glamorous. I watched too much Sex and the City.

REALLY EXCITED TO BE AT BLOGHER

Thursday:

Blographer Event: Info gets a 9, food gets a 10.

I kept thinking I might run into Carson Daly, but then I remembered it’s not 1999.

I wish I was this talented

Friday:

Learning high kicks from the experts – The Rockettes!

Just hanging out with Martha. NBD.

What, don’t all NY hotels have giant tropical fish tanks in the lobby?

Saturday:

Breakfast with Disney Jr. I don’t even think Disney is CAPABLE of doing something half-way.

Katie Couric is pretty much my hero.

Convenient location, crazy expensive food and drinks.

Holy cow am I tired. I went to NYC trying to fight off a cold and ended up with laryngitis. I can barely whisper. It’s making getting back to real life even more of a challenge – any minute the kids are going to realize I physically CAN’T yell at them for things and their reign of terror will begin. Thank GOD my mother-in-law kept the house stocked and clean so I can just play silent-movie trains and watch Disney Jr and drink 50 gallons of water today while I remember what real life feels like.

Did you take any camera phone photos this week? Link up with one or lots using the linky below and grab the code (so it shows on your blog too!) over at Amy’s . It’s really fun!

Reading Tip: For an authentic chatting-over-coffee experience while reading this post, be sure to imagine me giggling every time I say “Butt Paste”.
When BlogHer asked if I’d be interested in trying Boudreaux’s Butt Paste, they wanted to know if I had a cute and funny diaper disaster story to share. I almost laughed out loud at the question – of COURSE I have diaper disaster stories. I have two kids! There was the time I was trying to be super cool and wore my baby into a tattoo shop to make an appointment and he promptly poopsploded right through the sling. Or I could tell you what happens when you have two kids in diapers and you accidentally mix up the sizes in your middle-of-the-night diaper changing fog. It’s not pretty.

But then The Incident happened. I will refrain from using names so as to make this story less Googleable in the future, although after what she did that’s being EXTREMELY generous. Let’s just call her Shmaroline.

Shmaroline has recently moved to a big-girl bed, which makes her feel very grown up and important. She loves her big-girl bed, especially because it means when she wakes up in the morning she can get out of bed and play with her dolls and blankies and other toys on the floor. Unfortunately, the transition to the big-girl bed came at exactly the same time as her interest in using the potty. And along with the interest in using the potty came a desire to NOT wear a diaper.

If you’re a parent, you can probably already see where this is going. Feel free to skip ahead, unless your child has been terrible today and you need to be reminded “Hey at least I didn’t have to scrub poop out of the carpet today!” Because yes. That is exactly what happened. My adorable baby girl woke up, silently removed her jammies and diaper, and crapped right on the floor. Which is terrible! Horrible! Totally disgusting! Definitely a Diaper Disaster!

And then she decided to stomp in it. (I’m sorry. So so sorry.) I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I heard her making her normal, happy, morning baby noises so I sent Evan in to let her out of the room. He took one look at her, slammed the door and ran back to the bathroom yelling “Mommy! Big mess Mommy! Shmaroline pooped!” Luckily, they both think a morning bath is a special treat – and I had a bottle of carpet cleaner waiting on top of Shmaroline’s bookcase. Wait, that actually wasn’t very cute. But it was definitely a disaster!

Mmmmm butt paste

Luckily, one of the things that ISN’T a disaster right now is Caroline’s diaper rash (Shocking news: Shmaroline was actually Caroline all along!). Despite lots of long car trips and super hot summer days, her bottom is as soft as a, uh, baby’s bottom. I got my tube of Boudreax’s Butt Paste right after we returned from Virginia and it worked wonders on the redness from 7 hours in the car seat. Since then I’ve been putting just a tiny dab on every night after bath and we’ve had zero issues. I’ve found it to be easier to put on and wipe off than other diaper creams I’ve tried and it doesn’t have that super-distinctive diaper cream smell I associate with most zinc oxide products. It even worked on the dreaded “Look Mom, I just ate an ENTIRE pint of blueberries on top of those strawberries I had for breakfast – now can I have some grapes?” rash. Boudreax’s was created by a pharmacist in 1978 and is recommended by pediatricians.

Got a diaper rash story? Leave a comment below and you will be entered into a sweepstakes to win a $100 gift card!

Visit Boudreaux’s Butt Paste on Facebook to learn more about the ultimate “secret weapon” when it comes to preventing and treating diaper rash. Check out BlogHer.com to find other reviews and more ways you can enter to win!

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This is an easy tutorial for robot shaped crayons only because we were having a robot-themed birthday. It’s really for any kind of shaped crayons – the possibilities are endless. All you need is a few boxes of regular crayons, a silicone mold and an oven.

Step 1: Peel all the wrappers off the crayons. It’s tedious, but put on a movie, grab a glass of wine and get to work.

Step 2: Break the crayons into pieces. For the 1 inch molds we broke each crayon into 3 or 4 pieces.

Step 3: Put broken pieces directly into the silicone mold.

Step 4: Put the mold in an oven or toaster oven set at 350 degrees for approximately 5-7 minutes, or until the wax has melted.

Step 5: Carefully transfer the mold to a shallow dish filled with ice water. Once the wax cools and hardens, pop out the crayons and repeat!

Lots of colors! Erin made a whole rainbow – each kid got at least 8 crayons.

Tips:

• We were looking for a way to melt the wax to pour into the molds when I suggested just melting the wax IN the mold. It worked perfectly, and all the details on the crayons showed up really well.
• This is the silicone robot mold we used for the crayons. It’s technically for chocolate, but any silicone mold would work for crayons.
• Wax DOES burn, so keep an eye on your crayons and don’t try to rush them by turning the oven up too high.
• If you set your mold on a piece of tin foil (see below) the foil cools almost instantly and it’s easy to transfer to the cold water without tipping or sloshing the wax.
• We only filled the molds about half way – it kept the crayons easy for little hands to grab.

Crayons in action!

Robot birthday post coming soon!