Taking Pictures

Many of you family and friends have seen pictures that we've had taken of Katen. My plan is to have the pickle's 1,3,6,9, and 12 month pictures taken professionally. That leaves some gaps though and I learned very quickly that babies change in the blink of an eye. (and she's not too keen on having strangers take her picture.) So, we also do photo shoots at home.

Sometimes (on a good day) the sessions from home turn out better than the pro shots do. I think a lot of it is because Katen is more relaxed at home and I have the patience to wait for a good shot. At Katen's very first pro shoot she did great. She was one month old and amazingly was alert for the whole thing. The second pro shoot was quite the opposite. She was all smiles during the morning of the shoot but once we got her to the guy's house and set up on the backgrounds she stonewalled us. Not as single smile... until we buckled her into her carseat and began to leave. (What a turkey!) Pro shoot number three had potential but we had to wait 45 minutes to get in because they were running behind. You just can't ask a 6 month old to behave that long so those shots were not great either. Two smiles. I think that's all we got from the six month shoot. Fantastic.

In doing my own shoots there's definitely been a learning curve. Her two month pictures show my green-ness but they have endearing traits to them nonetheless. Four months was better. At five months I was getting closer yet. As I continue trying to get a little bit better, I've had to dig into the users manual of our camera and I've also gathered tips from others.

What tips can I share for more successful picture sessions at home? Let's see...
-Use natural light when possible
-Outside shade is your friend
-Fill the screen with the object you're shooting
-Try editing with PicniK for some fun enhancements
-Buy remnant fabric and use it for backgrounds – solids are better than busy patterns
-Learn the features of your camera and use them to your advantage
-Take a million pics to get 20 good ones ;)
-Use the ‘burst’ or ‘continuous shooting’ mode to get several consecutive shots at a time
-Frame your subject for a neat effect – try a window, fence, doorway, etc
-Try angling your camera – the pictures don't have to be exactly portrait or landscape
-Get down on the baby's level

And great tips from others...

From “DavezWife”
-I used a sunny window with sheer white drapes, that looked nice.
-Textured blankets or fake fur make good backgrounds
-I turn off the flash and hold a naked lamp behind me, or above.
-I'm partial to photoscape for editing
-Use the macro feature on camera. You can make the nearest object sharp while the background blurs. (This is the F stop on regular cameras.) -My note: You can also fake that camera setting by using Picnic for editing.
-Weird noises get kid's attention more than just yoo-hoo'ing... bark, blow a whistle, sneeze loud... those get her to react more than "hi baby"

From “Wvagirl”
-If you are using a point and shoot camera be sure to turn off that flash when possible. The flash can overpower your baby/subject especially indoors.

From Robin
-Change your perspective, to get a better shot, stand on a chair, lie on the ground.
-Don't take pictures of just happy subjects, crying babies photograph well, too, as well as pensive babies!
-Be sure to take pictures of parts of babies, too. Feet, hands, etc.
-Use perspective to your advantage. Get the favorite toy in the foreground, baby in the background.
-Bounce the flash off the ceiling sometimes!

From Pamela
-Be patient
-A great photo does not always have to be a calm, quiet baby
-Pay attention to shadows – watch your screen for shadows
-Use props...favorite toy, blanket, lovie
-Focus on just one part of the body, such as feet, hands, little belly button, tight shots of face but not the entire face, eyes

From Rachel
-Don't be afraid to get close up.
-Be creative with the focus
-Shoot on manual exposure, you'll get much better lighting than on auto

I'm sure I'll continue to learn even more tips and tricks as we go. My next challenge will probably be learning to get photos of a very high energy mobile baby!

If you want to have a little fun, click this link to see if you can pick
out the pro pics vs my pics. (You probably can. Some of them are obvious, but humor me. I'm still learning.) I'll post the results in a couple of days. :)

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5. 6.
7. 8.

9. 10.

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Milestone update

So what's Katen up to these days?

• She's giving hugs. She's been doing this for about a month. Especially at night when she's feeling snuggly, she'll mush her cheek up to yours and throw her arms around your neck really tight. It's very sweet.
• She's also giving kisses. Very wet open mouthed kisses. She'll study your face for just the right spot and then move in.
• Katen is able to make it clear who she wants to be held by. She reaches out her arms for that person or if she's laying down, she'll point one arm up in the air toward you.
• She's also very aware of our routines and how things work. When I set her carseat down, she's already moving her arms inside the straps of her buckle before I even get the release button pushed. Also when she's really hungry and I'm holding her facing me, she'll wiggle so that she's facing out, tuck her right arm behind me, and open her mouth like a hungry bird. Sometimes it's accompanied by an urgent "ah, ah, ah." She knows that this is the position we sit in when we drink a bottle.
• Since she was able to roll on her tummy, (about 5mos) she's been adamant about sleeping on her tummy. She can be sound asleep when you lay her down and she'll still at least roll to her side. Most of the time she likes to sleep on her belly with her arms tucked under her holding on to her lovey and her knees tucked under her with her bottom in the air. She also likes to rub the lovey on her face as she falls asleep. It's just a 12 x 12 inch blankie with a fuzzy side and a silky side. I think we're going to have to buy a backup just in case.
• We're this close to crawling. Two lengths is the most she's crawled but she's excellent at getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth. She's also mastered a little frog hop where she'll keep her arms in one spot but hop her knees up behind her hands. It's hilarious.
• Her new favorite sounds are blowing raspberries (usually while drooling. Where are those teeth?) and making this sound while rolling her tongue that's really throaty. Sort of like the sound you'd make when pretending to throw up. She's such a nut. If she gets excited about something she'll also make this assertive Hoa! sound. Her eyes get all big and her arms flail when she does it.
• I just got done replacing her infant carseat with her new big girl convertible carseat. She's still rear facing but has grown out of her Snugride infant seat's height requirements. (wow!) That means we can't use the handy snap in stroller that goes with the infant seat so we also got a new umbrella stroller. We settled on the Quinny Zapp and it's great so far. It folds up so small that it will fit in an overhead bin on a plane (great for our upcoming trip) and it weighs about 14lbs so it's very light. We took it for a spin around the block today. So far so good! We love our Jeep Liberty Urbain Terrain stroller very much but we also needed the smaller Quinny in order to fit through the check out stands at the grocery store. The Jeep stroller is also very heavy, so its better for walks and longer outings. I miss the shocks and rubber wheels of the Jeep when using the Quinny but it's just for quick stops anyway and definitely serves its purpose.
• We're currently working on easing into using a sippy cup. So far, Katen knows what to do with it and can hold it just fine, but doesn't quite grasp that she needs to tip it up to drink.
• She's sitting very well and has been for about a month and only gets a little wobbly when she tips her head back for the sippy. She really seems to be happier now that she can sit up and play with her toys as well. We've retired the swing now, so her favorite activities are jumping in the jumperoo and playing on the floor. Oh and combat crawling after the cat!
• Her latest achievement, just today, is that she's able to move into sitting position from all fours, so she can go from laying down to sitting up all by herself!

Stay tuned for updates on crawling. She's going to be a pro at it any day now.

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Pretty Purees

Time to make more baby food. Our stocks are getting low. I learned a few things this time that I'll share.

1. One pack of organic blueberries creates about One 3oz portion of baby food.

Yep. One. So blueberries aren't going to be one of the cheaper fruits to make, but consider this. Blueberries are really good for you child, and you can rarely find a manufactured baby food puree that is simply blueberries. It's always mixed with something and I'm guessing there's very little blueberry actually in those mixes. Since I thought they'd make more, I ended up mixing my blueberries with plums. They turned out a beautiful vibrant purple.

2. I found some beautiful sweet cherries at the store, but they're a pain to pit. However, It doesn't really matter how they look so I just squished them. That made removing the pits pretty darn easy. Cherry juice, along with plum juice seems to be fairly tricky to remove from all of the surfaces I slopped it on though. Thank goodness for my buddy, the magic eraser.

I'd say if you can buy pre-pitted frozen cherries, that might be a better bet. Although then you might miss out on the awesome cherry pie smell in your kitchen. Yum!

3. Zucchini and yellow squash puree really nicely and don't require any extra liquids or cereal to thicken. It turns out a pretty bright yellow and smells pretty appetizing.

4. I received some 1/2 cup Gladware containers from a market research company to sample. I just have to tell them what I think of them. Nice! I do like these little containers for babyfood as well. They hold up well in the freezer and the lids snap on well. The only problem is that they do not stack so they tend to rocket out of the freezer randomly when you're looking for something else. Watch the toes!

Some people have asked me where I bought my other babyfood containers. Here's the info.

They're called Babycubes and I get them on OneStepAhead.com or Amazon.com. Once I found them at Marshalls but otherwise I haven't found them at a brick and mortar store. I like having the lid attached. I like that they stack well. I also like that you can pop them in the dishwasher or the microwave and the're BPA free. The only problem I've encountered is that if you fill them too full they will pop open and if you drop them when frozen they will crack. That's common sense though and would happen with almost any plastic container.

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