A photograph is a great gift for Christmas – Here some ideas for you

Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher.

Kierkegaard sourly prophesied a banal fate for the newly popularized art of photography. “With the daguerreotype,” he observed, “everyone will be able to have their portrait taken—formerly it was only the prominent—and at the same time everything is being done to make us all look exactly the same, so we shall only need one portrait.”

As we get older it becomes more and more difficult for people to buy presents for us. We go out and buy what we need, so what would someone give you and what can you give others that they don't already have this Christmas.

One of the best personal gifts people can give is a photograph. The reason for this is that photos have the power to keep all our precious moments alive. And giving the gift of an especially well-chosen photo is a way to preserve a fond memory with someone you treasure.

The gift of a photograph today has many ways for presentation. One way many use now is a greeting card. This photo however is typically an individual or family sharing one of their personal memories with their family and friends.

If you give a photo to an individual the photo of something that you shared cannot just show your friendship with them, but help remind them of a memory that the two of you share.

Besides giving a print of the photo, you can have the photo put on just about anything. Here is just a sample of the items you could put the photograph on for that special gift:

• Coffee cup
• Candy Tin
• Blanket
• T-Shirts
• Aprons
• Coasters
• Calendars
• Neck Tie
• Ornament
• Porcelain Plate
• Puzzle
• Digital Photo Frame
• Coffee Table Book

The photo book also shows you took the time to make their gift. It will help preserve those memories of a family trip you made or one with your friends.

If you have the time and enough variety of photos the photo book is one of my favorite things to come along. You can produce a very nice coffee table book for your friend for as low as $20 for a 20 page soft cover book.

If you choose to make a book, my favorite book publisher is www.Blurb.com.

Go online to www.MyPhotoPipe.com where you cannot only get prints, holiday cards, but have canvas prints made.

Have Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas lights now easier with the Nikon D750

Nikon D750, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 12800, ƒ/4, 1/160

Last night we decided to drive around our community seeing the Christmas light decorations.

The Nikon D750's Highlight-weighted metering mode nailed the exposures. I didn't have to adjust the EV [Exposure Value].

Nikon D750, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 12800, ƒ/4.5, 1/80

I shot everything in RAW and then opened them in Lightroom. Very minor adjustments were done and more for look and feel than exposure adjustments.

Nikon D750, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 12800, ƒ/4.5, 1/80

Now if you shoot these scenes with most cameras that don't have the Highlight-weighted metering mode you will have to dial down the EV or you will not have any details in the highlights. You could have shot them in RAW and still not had details that are recoverable in those highlights.

Nikon D750, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 12800, ƒ/4.5, 1/125

An added bonus last night was seeing the Coca Cola Santa Claus. My grandmother had one of these that was on the front porch every year that we went home for the holidays.

Certain types of lights helped trigger good memories for me as we drove around. Lucky for me the Nikon D750 let me just enjoy and have memories rather than spending all my time technically trying to get the right exposure.

I hope that all the new Nikon cameras will continue to have the Highlight-weighted metering mode going forward.

Photography helping preserve Holiday traditions

This is the time of year we celebrate with family and friends. It is a tradition and photography can help everyone enjoy them more for the years to come, but for that to happen someone will have to take some photos.

I have been enjoying my wife's family tradition of Forget Me Not cookies.

Recipe FORGET Me Not - MERINGUE COOKIES

My sister makes rainbow cookies every year as well as a few other special cookies. As you can see you can easily photograph many of these family traditions, add the family recipes and then maybe create a book of the family memories and traditions for everyone in the family to get a copy.

Most of my friends have a party mix of some kind made with Chex cereal.  Well in our family we call it Scrabble. This is what my Nana "B" called it. She was my grandmother. Maybe it is they ate a lot of it when they played scrabble.

Here are a few tips that will improve these holiday photos for you this year.

First be sure and remove all the photos from your camera's memory card and put them in a safe place. I would have at least one more memory card. There are a few reasons for you having a second memory card. Of course if you fill up one you want a second, but believe it or not these things can fail and having a second card with you is important to capture those fleeting moments with family.

Our family tradition the past six years has been to go to the Fellowship of Christian Athlete breakfast at the Chick-fil-A Bowl each year. Here is my daughter and her friend with Dan Cathy.

Second, charge your multiple camera batteries. For the same reason you need a second memory card you need a second camera battery.

Third keep that camera with you all the time through the holidays. Take lots of photos.

Fourth use available light as much as you can. Do you best to custom white balance your photos.  I carry the ExpoDisc and get custom white balance every chance I can to get the best possible color in every situation.  I wrote about using this over presets in the camera in an earlier blog [click here]

Fifth buy a tripod and actually use it. This is most likely the one thing that will improve people's photos the most over anything else. The reason is camera shake is the number one reason for poor photos. There is motion in the image making the subject look soft and out of focus. They are not so much out of focus as the camera is moving while the camera is taking the photo. I wrote on how I use a tripod to photograph the ornaments on the tree [click here] in an earlier blog post.

Sixth think about everything you are doing this holiday before you do anything. Take a moment and reminisce about the years gone by. What are the traditions that you look forward to each year.  Take a moment and write out an outline.  I wrote an earlier blog to help you with this if you need some tips. [click here]

Be prepared this Christmas to document some of the family traditions you have and help capture not only the visuals but the reasons these are traditions in writing. put together a photo book after the holidays and share this with your family and friends.  Maybe include some of those family recipes with photos of the cooks as they are making them.

Here is a great place to make that book for about $30 or more if you have a lot to include. Check out Blurb.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Christmas Holiday Moments

Fly On The Wall

Ever heard someone say that would like to be a fly on the wall during that conversation?  This means you would like to be over hearing the conversation as if you were not there. You want the situation to be real and them not know you are there.

Being the Fly-on-the-wall is also referring to the documentary style of photography where you are working as unobtrusively as possible to capture those candid moments.

In the first photo I was able to capture the newest addition to our family. His older cousin and great aunt are entertaining him and loving his reactions.

Body Language

I just love this photo of the nieces and nephews getting measured to see who is taller while their aunt looks on.  What also makes this photo fun for me is this isn't all that is going on, you have the youngest boy being held by his mother looking at me.

The body language tells the story that most likely happens during the holidays at many homes where the children are measured to see how much they have grown since last year.

Leaving some things out

You don't need to see everything in a photo for it to work. Here the proud mother holding her child comes through clearly. Do you need to see all of the kid for it to work? I don't think so. You may actually want more in the photo and if you took it you would include more. The strength sometimes by leaving something out makes you want to know what is really going on. By leaving something out you help peak the curiosity of the audience.  Keep everything in and often you loose that curiosity.

Details

So often the small things around the holidays help tell our family story. How often does your family talk about something grandmother cooks at the holidays? Do you have photos of this to pass along in your family.

My sister makes these rainbow cookies every year and so I thought I would be sure to document this for our family history. I keep talking about gathering our family recipes and creating a book. Now just imagine this photo with a photo of the recipe card in the original family members handwriting that started the tradition. Maybe you have a photo of them as well on the page of the family book.

The Patriarch Speaks

Every year my dad likes to remind us how important family is to us. This year he read The Dash Poem by Linda Ellis. Here is a link to that poem in case you might want to make it part of your family tradition.

Crawling on the floor

Please don't walk around the room and take all your photos from the standing position. Get down to the little ones level like I did here. What happens when you are eye level to the baby of the family. Well the last time most of us saw things from this perspective was when we were just children ourselves.

When you get down on the ground you help the audience feel like they did when they were children.

Have some fun

Here my daughter on the right with her friend are making music with Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-fil-A. He had these shakers with cow spots that are egg shaped.  During my daughter's Christmas break she had fun with not just her friends but Dan Cathy.

Where did you go?

We decided to drive just a few miles from the grandparents house to where they filmed some of the Hunger Games.

You may recognize this photo as the baker shop.

Maybe you remember Katniss running here in this scene.

Holiday's are about memories and here you can see my daughter is quite excited to be in front of the water falls where Katniss ran across.

How did you do with capturing your family this Christmas?

You Might Be A Photographer if ...

Your friends are giving you Christmas ornaments each year.

Twas the night before Christmas and I was sitting in my recliner by the tree. I looked over to enjoy the season when it hit me I am a photographer because I have so many ornaments to remind me.

Somewhere on your Christmas tree you have Santa with a camera.

I was enjoying my coffee in my Nikon mug and it tastes so much better when I have logos around me. Not just any logos will do for it is always Nikon and can never be a Canon. 

You have a picture of Santa in a slide mount.

There are also ornaments to remind me just how long I have been in this career. I have a slide of Santa from another Christmas eve.

You have a What The Duck Christmas ornament

Today I have a cartoon character that helps me laugh and laugh really loud. What the Duck has given me much glee this year, helping me make light of the moments which use to get me all up tight.

You don't just have Christmas ornaments but coffee mugs with cameras or camera manufacturer logos.

Nikon 24-79mm f/2.8 Coffee Mug.  If you have one of these you have it pretty bad.

Merry Christmas!