I'll Never Be The Family Photographer

Taking pictures is a huge part of life to a family with small children.  It's especially important to us because we don't see our families often; they count on seeing pictures and videos of the boys.  I thought I would chat a little bit about how we "do" photography in our house.

First of all Mr. Banker takes the reins on most everything in this arena.  He was a staff photographer for his college where he photographed anything from portraits to sports events.  For friends and family he has shot weddings, maternity pictures, newborn pictures and he'll always grab the camera when a photo-worthy moment arises.  

Gear-  He just expanded our "camera suite" with a new point and shoot, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5. It has all the extra settings that I never do anything with, but so far he likes it.  I have another Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS5 that I use to take everyday pictures and videos.  We also have a Nikon D80 with all kinds of lenses, flashes & accessories.  We also recently got a big flash kit with the umbrellas and all that jazz to set up a DIY photobooth for my birthday party.  Super excited about that and that we'll be able to use in the future to *try* to take some portraits of the boys! 


Shooting-  Of course, Mr. is the go-to guy for this!  I think I can get some good composition (basically the only things I remember from my high school photography class) but my brain just can't compute the aperture, shutter speed, yada, yada, yada when I'm chasing around two toddlers.  I'm also lazy since I know Mr. can do all of that without thinking.  He is kind enough to leave the camera on the settings that make for better shots. (Here's the part where I get to show off my cuties!)

A new favorite!

But many come out like this-

I follow the "take a ton of pictures and maybe I'll get one" approach.
 
Archiving-  I'm in charge of making sure all of our shots get off the memory cards.  We store all of our photos and videos on SmugMug.  Our families can access our albums, but there are also options for private and password protected albums.  It is great because you can always download the high-res images and you can also order prints through the site.  We can also move pictures and videos from our iPod/iPad to SmugMug using the PhotoSync app.  This is a great app that makes it really easy to get these files off of your i-device.


Presentation-  This is really the hardest part for us.  We have a ton of frames I bought (cough, two years ago, cough) to make some gallery arrangements that have yet to find a home on a wall or pictures to fill them.  When we start to try to narrow down ones we may want to use Mr. wants to edit them which seems to never happen (sorry, hun, sad but true.)  I recently remembered I still need to make our beach vacation photo book from last year.  I'm thinking one day I will have time to get prints to make albums for the boys.  Maybe when they start school, ha!

Portraits- For a long time we were very DIY about pictures.  You really shouldn't underestimate the importance of a professional photographer.  With BB we didn't get newborn pictures taken because we thought we could figure it out.  Much easier said than done.  Though we have been able to find some work arounds.  For beach pictures we use a tripod and a remote self timer.  It can be a little frustrating, but if we get one good picture we saved several hundred dollars.  I hope to get family portraits done this Fall and I need to take the boys to get their 1 year and 3 year pictures taken.  I like Portrait Innovations for those traditional studio shots. 


This is how we do it!  I'd love to hear any secrets y'all have to offer!