Capturing Fall Moments in the Pumpkin Patch :: Repost :: Mamatography Photo Workshops for Moms

Happy Fall 2013!
We haven't gone to pick out our pumpkin yet, but here's a little recap of our trip to Bedner's Pumpkin Patch in Boynton Beach, FL in 2011. My little Safi wasn't even 1 yet! Memories....

This thriving family fun spot was SMOTHERED with Mamatographers! I was so busy with my cranky girl that there was no time to solicit photo lessons ; ) 

Here are some tips for shooting in a busy pumpkin patch: 

1st, don't go at mid day! The best light is going to be early in the morning or late afternoon.I like the technique of a soft gleaming sun coming through my lens so Safi's back was always to the sun.
With that said, I experimented with Flash for filling in shadows. This gave my shots a nice saturation in the sky, pumpkins & her shaw.**Invest in an external flash, you won't be sorry you did**  

CAMERA SETTINGS: Try to use your lenses WIDEST Aperture aka Fstop i.e. f2.8 or f3.5 for a painterly blurry background. To achieve this you might have to use a low ISO, i.e. 200 becuase there will probably be quite a bit of sunlight in the scene. As for your Shutter Speed, it will probably fall in a fast range of i.e. 1/500th of a Second.

For More on Camera Settings, Read my book or ebook, Photo Basics & Bayond- A Mamatographers Camera Bag Companion 

As far as beating the farm stand crowds...we booked it to the back corner of the farm where they had laid out cucumber plants to serve as imitation vines for the pumpkins. (It's very unlikely to find naturally growing pumpkins in South Florida). I tried to be mindful of my background and avoid capturing other patrons or farm workers in the frame. This gave my shots a feel of peaceful isolation so that the focus was ONLY on Safi.
I brought my Mom with me to help with Safi. Of course she wanted to eat dirt and gnaw on the bright orange pumpkins so it helped to have Grandma as a "Baby Stylist".

Here's some varied lighting examples...

Without Flash~

With Flash~

Happy Fall Shooting!

xo, Vicky & Safi

mod Camera Strap Giveaway & Review

Gladly, I took the opportunity to try out this comfy, cool, camera strap from mod. What's EVEN MORE spectac-ular, they offered to do a Giveaway for the Mamatography audience! Scroll to the bottom of this post to Enter!

In class a couple weeks ago, one of my fashionista students told me "Orange is the New Black!" I pondered this. Thinking, hmm, maybe I should completely redecorate my house in ORANGE, always getting ahead of my self ; )

Taking it down a notch, while I was shopping for some straps for the Mamatography discount store, I found the perfect one that would surely be fashion forward!

Not only is it the perfect color for Fall and the pattern itself is mod(ern), the quality and comfort is perfection!

When I'm shooting, I suffer from a lot of shoulder and neck pain if I'm going at it for a while. I prefer to carry bags that are padded and use straps that are cushy as well. This strap is just that!

Source: pinterest.com/modstraps

The designed outer cloth is like a sturdy but wearable canvas material and the shoulder side is a plush brown material. There are durable clips which allow you to easily interchange there straps if you want to mix it up. What I really LOVE is that they're made in the USA! A heard to come by feature in textiles these days.

I definitely recommend mod straps for busy, tired, sore Mamatographers! Want one for your self? Enter the Giveaway below for a Gift Card to the mod shop or pick up the Orange strap in the Mamatography Discount Photo Gear Store, HERE.

For more on mod, check out their website, Facebook & Pinterest pages!

Happy Snapping, Vicky

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Using Photoshop CS6: The "Content Aware" Feature

Recently, I had the pleasure of capturing some of my Panama Mama friends for my next book, the Mamatography™ Capture Calendar.

This colorful pic was just so full of life and joy! BUT WAIT! There's a pole in Olga's head : (

A common question that I get asked is "How do I remove a ________ from a photo?". How you ask? With the NIFTY Content Aware feature available in Photoshop CS6!

If you have just a little bit of know how about Photoshop (using it's tools, and specifically it's Selection Tools) then you can manage to remove an unwanted object by means of Content Aware deletion.

So first off, open up your picture file and duplicate the original layer by dragging it to the little page icon on the bottom right of the layers pallet. ALWAYS DO THIS! With any project.

Next, I used the Polygonal lasso tool to make a general selection of the pole behind her head. You will see "Marching Ants" where you have made your selection.

I prefer to add a bit of "feathering" to my selection areas for a more natural result. I feathered my selection by a radius of 20 pixels. Click OK.

With the area selected, simply click delete and the below option will appear. Click OK.

See the "Marching Ants" in the image below.

Next, it's time to perfect your retouching skills by adding some reality to the deleted area.

What I noticed about my background is that it had a TON of bokeh (that lit, circular effect that is a result of shallow depth of field by using a WIDE aperture on your lens).

This was going to make my life SOMEWHAT easy. To start, I decided to brush the remaining outline area w/ the colors making up the area around it.

For this, I used my "Go To" retouching tools, the Eyedropper and the Brush.

So I brushed in the green areas and then proceeded to FAKE the bokeh sampling different yellow, green, blue and red areas of the background.

I adjusted the hardness of my brush where it was needed as I went along.

Once the general background was complete, I repeated all of these steps for the area underneath and between them where the poll remained. Minor adjustment was due to how much I feathered the selection.

And that 's the gist of Content Aware Fill (and deletion).

If you enjoyed this tutorial but NEED to learn more, leave a comment below or sign up for a  webinar with me! The full menu of classes can me found here on the Mamatography site: http://store.mamatographylessons.com/

Happy Snapping, Vicky