This morning I had a chance to talk to the lovely ladies at Bethany MOMS group.  They were super gracious and kind…especially considering I was working off a few hours of sleep and had a few extra gray hairs.  Last night Cooper took a dive off one of our retaining walls and spent the evening in the ER.  He’s OK, just down a few teeth.  Even though I HATE the thought of a child being hurt, it did take my mind off being nervous!

For those of you that don’t know, I’m a self-taught photographer.  I started out as a mom that loved good pictures and was dying to learn how to get from point A to point B.  Point A being the digital camera- Point B was an amazing photograph.

I read as much as I could, asked lots of questions, watched my friend Shannon and then just practiced a ton.  Then practiced some more.  Of course I’m still learning, but I wanted to share some tips that I picked up along the way.  Tips that any one can try…you don’t have to be a professional and you don’t have to own a fancy camera.

I’ll be sharing the list of those tips in the next week on a friends blog…more on that to come!  For now I want to share some pictures that I took today.  After I gave the talk, I asked to borrow one of the kids so the moms could see the tips in action.

Hayden was kind enough to let me take his photo…so off we went to the doorway.  Perfect lighting situation! This first picture was taken with my rather cheap point and shoot camera.

This next one is the same image, but I edited it in photoshop…adding contrast, warming it up.  Pretty basic things.  You can do this!

My encouragement is that as a mom with a fairly simple camera, you can take a good picture of your kids.  It’s as simple as using light to work for you instead of against you…like I said more on that to come.

The next few pictures were taken with the big gun…my Canon 5D.  The pictures are sharper, crisper and have better coloring.  So, yes there is a big difference when you are hiring a professional photographer.

I told the MOMS group to check on my blog to see the images I took while I was there.  Hopefully they’ll be able to notice some of the tips that we talked about.  And a big thank you to Hayden for letting me photograph him in front of all those people!

-Kristin