For Parents Archives

Keeping Your Pictures Organized

May 15, 2017 | Photography Tips for Parents

Written by: Heidi Peters and Amy Tripple

Avoid getting bogged down by your hobby

Being organized is not glamorous. No one will compliment for your amazing organization skills. But did you know that being organized makes the creative process much more enjoyable and fulfilling?

FIRST THINGS FIRST
There is nothing more heartbreaking than losing your precious images. Computers do crash — usually at the most inopportune moment. This is the least glamorous but the most important step of being organized, so do your backup FIRST. Decide on a location to store your images besides your computer hard drive and set up a way to automatically backup to this place. You can choose to use an external hard drive or an online service like Dropbox, Amazon Prime, Google, Flickr, iCloud, or the myriad of other services out there. Best practice is to use both and external hard drive and online service. If you haven’t already, back up everything NOW.

NEXT, SET UP A HIERARCHY
The next step is decide a way to keep your images in some kind of order. We use dates and keywords. Pictures are organized in folders by year and month. Within each month, pictures are organized by topic. Within each topic is a folder for all the shots right off the camera and another folder for pictures that have been chosen to be printed.

USE TAGS
If you use Lightroom, iPhoto, Aperture or other organizational software you also have the option of tagging your images with keywords. This is an invaluable tool for finding your pictures quickly in the future. It’s pretty likely that your kids are going to need pictures for school projects at very short notice. (Like, 10 minutes before you are trying to head out the door to get to school on time. Perhaps you can relate?) The ability to locate and pull up pictures quickly really does have real-life benefits, its not just for pro photographers.

A FEW SPECIAL SHOTS
Every once is a while you make magic. You know right at the moment that you click the shutter that you’ve got a display-worthy shot. These are the pictures that shouldn’t wait until later to get printed. They deserve special treatment. Get those printed, framed and up on the wall right away!

IN CLOSING
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of images your photography hobby involves, but remember that family photography is just that, a hobby. You do it for fun. Do NOT get bogged down in perfection; instead, make it a point to get a system in place so that you can keep shooting and ultimately get your images into the hands of your kiddos. Be organized or you’ll soon find yourself under a pile of digital images that will feel more like a burden instead of the sweet memories that they are.

Amy Tripple and Heidi Peters are award-winning photographers. Their work has appeared in Parents Magazine, US Weekly, People, The Chicago Tribune and Professional Photographer Magazine. They created Shoot Along to give themselves structure and accountability to capture their own families and decided it would be a great concept to share with other parents.

What began as a personal project has grown into a friendly and rewarding passion, offering support and instruction to parents on six continents. The goal of Shoot Along is to give parents the tools they need to document their families through photography.

Over 3,500 parents have taken part in Shoot Along since it started in 2014.

For more exciting information about Shoot Along, visit www.ShootAlong.com

5 Easy Tips to Improve Your Photos

May 1, 2017 | Photography Tips for Parents

Written by: Amy Tripple and Heidi Peters

5 Easy Tips to Improve Your Photos

1. Straighten your horizon

A crooked picture just feels… weird. You can solve many problems of composition by keeping an eye on your horizon. You’ll be able to frame up the other parts of your image more thoughtfully if you start with a straight shot.

2. Get lower

Can you think of anything less compelling than a picture of the top of someone’s head? It’s hard to capture a lot of emotion from this perspective! If you are photographing someone smaller than you, like say, your child, get down to his level so that the picture will show some expression. Getting lower has the added benefit of changing the overall perspective of the shot to make it more dynamic and include more background information.

3. Go off-center

Putting your subject front and center in an image is boring. The most powerful points in an image are 1⁄3 across or 1⁄3 up or down, not in the middle. Try creating an image where the subject is not in the center and you will see that it suddenly is much more interesting.

4. Notice shadows

It’s a sunny day, perfect for pulling out the camera and grabbing a few special shots. But when you look at your images it’s painfully obvious that the sun has cast dark shadows into your subject’s eye sockets, giving her a raccoon-like appearance. Before clicking the shutter, have a good look at the direction of the sun. Is it casting strange shadows? Is your child squinting from facing the sun directly? The easiest fix it to find an area that is in total shade. If you can’t do that, try keeping the sun at your subject’s back.

5. Use your manual zoom

There is a powerful piece of photography equipment that you may not even know you own. Have you discovered it? It’s your legs! Rather than cranking your zoom lens, make your images better by moving yourself to a new position. Closer, further, higher, lower. Putting yourself at the ideal vantage point will ultimately give your pictures better composition, cropping and exposure.

Amy Tripple and Heidi Peters are award-winning photographers. Their work has appeared in Parents Magazine, US Weekly, People, The Chicago Tribune and Professional Photographer Magazine. They created Shoot Along to give themselves structure and accountability to capture their own families and decided it would be a great concept to share with other parents.

What began as a personal project has grown into a friendly and rewarding passion, offering support and instruction to parents on six continents. The goal of Shoot Along is to give parents the tools they need to document their families through photography.

Over 3,500 parents have taken part in Shoot Along since it started in 2014.

For more exciting information about Shoot Along, visit www.ShootAlong.com

Hiring an APNPI Certified Newborn Photographer

Apr 15, 2017 | Hiring a Professional Photographer

Enjoy peace of mind knowing you are placing your baby in the hands of a Safety Educated APNPI Photographer.

Our directory listings will connect you with APNPI Newborn Photographers. Each listing identifies the skill level of the photographer, so you will know what you can expect from them and from your session.

Each photographer listed has been Safety Educated in the unique needs of infants.

Currently the APNPI has three main levels of certification that comes after the Safety Education. All members are Safety Educated and have attained their QNP before they can market themselves as APNPI members. The three levels are as follows:

Qualified Newborn Photographer (QNP) – this certificate demonstrates proficiency as a photographer skilled in lighting, camera functions, artistic composition, and working with a range of family scenarios including multiples, siblings, and family portraiture. You can expect that a QNP photographer is either well established in business practices, or emerging in that area, have successfully passed an extensive business portfolio review, and are striving toward, or have completed levels of Accreditation. They are capable of taking on a wide range of photography challenges, and have demonstrated competence and proficiency in producing a well rounded and satisfactory gallery for any given client. This certificate is an excellent indicator that separates a skilled professional from the hobbyist.

Accreditations: At the accreditation level, photographers are now taking their art to a higher level with the fine tuning and honing of their specialties within their field. They must achieve a minimum standard in order to earn their accreditation in specific accreditation categories. Hiring an APNPI Accredited Photographer will give you peace of mind that you are hiring an educated, experienced and professional photographer competent in both their craft and in business.

Masters Designations: The Masters Designations level indicates a newborn photographer who has achieved outstanding results in photography and business, and is now starting to give back to the community in various leadership and mentorship roles. Hiring a photographer of this level is nothing short of a real treat.

Being your family’s journalist

Apr 1, 2017 | Photography Tips for Parents

Written by: Amy Tripple and Heidi Peters

Being your family’s journalist

I’ve always believed that one of the biggest privileges of owning a decent camera is the opportunity to capture my children’s lives. In fact, a number of years ago I deemed myself the “Family Journalist” and began to look for opportunities to capture the life of our little clan. Of course, I’m always sure to document the big events and special occasions, but deep down I think the most important part of my self-prescribed role is the way I can document the “everyday” beauty of our family’s existence.

It’s easy to lose motivation in this role, however, because the everyday is just that: every day. Often, we’re uninspired by the things that are constantly around us: another day eating breakfast at the kitchen counter, squirming through homework after school, playing in the sprinkler on hot summer days, brushing teeth and getting ready for bed… and yet…

As a mom of a ten, nine, and six year old, I can now say with 100% certainty that those seemingly endless days of footie pajamas, baby food in the high chair, preschool pick-up, and evening tubbies do, in fact, have an end. I can also guarantee that you’ll be grateful for every single photo you took of those everyday events.

When I’m having a hard time finding motivation to fill my role of “Family Journalist”, I find that there are a few things that help get me back on track:

Change it up

Sometimes, I switch my focus from the kids to their things. Your children’s special things (their lovies, rooms, craft sets, collections, etc…) are important to them and represent a part of their childhood. Pictures of these everyday objects will evoke warm feelings for them years from now… it’s an amazing gift to give each of them!

Change perspective

If you tend to shoot from eye level, try capturing things from an aerial view. If you like to shoot close-up, step back and tell the story from a more epic perspective. You’ll enjoy the shift and you might just find the challenge motivating.

Pull out old pictures

When all else fails, it’s time to excavate some pictures from the past. Take time to revel in the changes your children have made in the short time between now and then. It’s a powerful reminder that our everyday moments grow exponentially in value as the years go by… and there’s no better motivation than that!

Amy Tripple and Heidi Peters are award-winning photographers. Their work has appeared in Parents Magazine, US Weekly, People, The Chicago Tribune and Professional Photographer Magazine. They created Shoot Along to give themselves structure and accountability to capture their own families and decided it would be a great concept to share with other parents.

What began as a personal project has grown into a friendly and rewarding passion, offering support and instruction to parents on six continents. The goal of Shoot Along is to give parents the tools they need to document their families through photography.

Over 3,500 parents have taken part in Shoot Along since it started in 2014.

For more exciting information about Shoot Along, visit www.ShootAlong.com