12 days of Christmas photography tips. Day two, tip two: The beauty ofdaylight

Daylight Portraits - Window light

My fabulous Grandfather, lit by window light. 

These often dull winter days that close in before we even get going don’t lend themselves well to beautiful, naturally lit photos indoors.

When using your phone it seems any kind of movement ends up looking very blurred when you look at the photo after and this is becuase your camera phone isn't great at compensating for low light.

...If you have the new iphone7 you may already know it has been commended for its 'stunning' low light performance. I'd love to know what you think if you have one.  

What you need to bear in mind is that even professional cameras struggle in low light and require the ISO setting to be increased to avoid capturing unwanted blurring.

So if capturing moving subjects without the blur is something you want to master on these dull winter days and over the Christmas period you simply have to make sure there is enough good light available to shoot in.

This means shooting indoors between the hours of 9am and and 3pm, or finding the lightest room in your house to take the photos in. Whichever room you take your photos in make sure the light from a window is shining directly on the subject, and be sure to make sure you are not standing in front of the window when you take your photos or you will block out part of that available light. You may even want to turn the lights on in the house but beware when you have daylight and tungsten light in an image some of the colours can look a little strange.

. If approximately, why not place your subject next to the window. Here you have a strong light source where you will notice higher degrees of light and shadow on the face that make for quite arty photos.

This is Edna, a lovely elderly lady I used to visit when I was at university. 

Sometimes we forget to take photos of grandparents at Christmas yet for me there is such beauty to be found in an elderly face; a whole life imprinted in the lines and tones. Why not try taking some photos of your elderly guests this Christmas. One thing is for sure, when those elderly relatives come to pass no one ever says, 'I wish we had LESS photos' of nan or granddad. 

Another interesting affect comes from bringing your subject further into the room away from the window. Here you will notice that you don’t have the problems of strong light or shadow, instead you get a more even spread of light. This is Caroline from a maternity shoot we did this summer. She is lit from a far away window the other side of the room. This lighting is far more painterly, and subtle and gives muted tones to the image.  

Have fun playing about but always make sure when you bring your subject further into the room that they are facing that light source and your back is to it  …. and try not to block out that light source with your body, which is easy to do! Stand just at the side of the window when taking photos.

12 days of Christmas photography tips. Tip one - For the love of Christmas lights.

For the Love of Christmas Lights...

If you want to take some really beautiful photos of your children/family this Christmas then planning your shot makes all the difference.  My best images of children have involved a bit of planning, thought about backdrop, time playing around with framing the shot and of course a happy and content subject.

In the Pre-Christmas build up there are a number of opportunities perfect for making into keepsake photos.

Christmas lights add the 'wow' factor to photos.

If you are looking to get a couple of really cute Christmas photos of your children, maybe even a special photo to put on a Christmas card for the family, then why not try a bit of Christmas bokeh?

What is 'bokeh'? Well bokeh is a blurred light effect that you will already be familiar with even if you hadn't realised what it was called. Check out the photo at the top of this post to see what i'm talking about.

To create a shot similar to the one at the top of the post (or the one up next) there are a couple things you need to do.

Follow these steps:

First, turn the main overhead lights down a little (well this is my preference but you can play around and see what you prefer). If you do this you might need some kind of additional light source to light your subject's face if your camera phone struggles with the lack of light.

Bring your subject just a couple of feet in front of the Christmas lights and stand or sit them down. Make sure the Christmas lights are on!

Using your phone,frame the image with the subject either in the centre or to one side. Make sure you leave enough space at either side of the subject and over their head so you can see the lovely lights - like the photos in this post.

When you have framed your image touch the screen where your subject 's face is. You will see their face come into focus and become sharp and the Christmas lights behind them begin to blur beautifully.

You may need to play around with the distance you leave between your subject and the Christmas lights behind them - the nearer or further they are from the lights will give you slightly different effects.

I'd love to know how you get on and even better to see some of your photos if you'd like to share? 

12 days of Christmas photography tips. Introduction.

Introducing Sammi Sparke Photography's 12 days of Christmas Photography tips, a little something for families wanting to take better, more creative photos over the Christmas period.

As a family photographer I been into many houses and photographed many adults and children over the years. Every single shoot i've undertaken in my 6 years working with families have been part of a wonderful learning curve and an insight into the simple things that make all the difference in creating fabulous photos. So here, over the next 12 days, I look to share with you a few nuggets of useful tips to help you create some fab photos of your family over the the Christmas period.

Whether you are using a smart phone, tablet/ipad, professional camera or disposable camera these tips can work for all of you and don't require any specific level of expertise.

So sit back, enjoy and if you try any of these out I would love you to post your photos on my facebook or twitter page for us to have a look out:

Sammi Sparke Facebook  

or  

Twitter:Sammi Sparke Twitter  with hashtag #Sparkephototips

Happy Photographing 

New Born Photography with a Sparkle. (Practice makes perfect.)

This year I have started to offer new born and bump photography and what a learning curve it has been.

Baby Bumps

The bump side to my bump to baby photography has been a lot of fun and I feel truly in my comfort zone with this - sensitively capturing the beauty, happiness, love and hope that a woman exudes while she is pregnant has proved truly satisfying for me as a photographer.

The new born side to the bump to baby shoots however, has been far more of a learning curve for several reasons.



Newbies

The primary challenges I have faced with new borns revolves around how I make a new born shoot my own.

I do not use a studio and my photography style is very much against (for want of a better description) the studio photography aesthetic.  I am through and through a lifestyle family photographer favouring a reportage approach where I can, natural light and always a real back drop such as the home or nature.

I wanted to still offer however, as part of my package, some 'studio style' new born images. You know the ones, where babies are swaddled, cocooned and sleeping often with random flowers or hats attached to their tiny heads. These are pretty cute images and understandably they are something that lots of my mums tend to want.

So, I had to learn this and wow, what a challenge! I needed to acquire a rather odd skill set;how to model new born babies. Yep. I was petrified. They are so tiny. I really must acknowledge here that learning this stuff was only made this possible thanks to dear family and friends. These guys let me practice on their new bors and bless them, their confidence in me helped me feel more confident in return.

With my first ever new born shoot featuring my niece, my brother had to lay underneath the blanket we put her on so she felt warm and contented and that way he could manipulate her arms and legs to help get her into the optimum position for the shot.

Aside from hands on practice I watched every You Tube video going on the subject, I watched them before, during and after and I still watch them now. I also looked at every new born photography tip and bit of advice out there. It was quite a learning curve.

The greater problem however still existed that parents could go to most high street studios to get these staged kinds of images and I needed to offer something else in my packages, something that made my new born shoots at home special. With this in mind I needed to bring the home and the family into my images.

   

In the future I look forward to being able to capture more of those everyday looking after baby moments: Baby's nursery, baby being bathed, baby being dressed, baby with sibling(s), parents with baby out for walk, grandparents and pets.

Essentially, I want each of my shoots at home to represent each individual and unique family I work with.

.....and unlike studio photography you also won't be paying through the nose for every image you want.

I'm not a studio. I'm not photographing several babies a day and making hundreds of pounds on selling you prints and charging you extra for the digital files.

I actually tend to get quite attached to my clients which on the whole works out pretty well for them, for you. I really want you to have all the images I take especially considering the work that's gone into making them for you. I've come to your home, taken the time and care to photograph your new born with you, the parents and sometimes other family, and then I've gone away and spent hours editing those photos using my expertise to create stand out images you can't wait to show off in your home or by sharing with friends and family on your social media.

So here, finally, is my NewBorn package. A package which beats the socks off of any studio shoot in a monetary sense as well as, according to my clients, in the style and choice of images you get.

Photo bundles are charged at the following New Born shoots at home:

• £250 for Sheffield and Cambridge clients.  For all other clients travel is extra

Each shoot includes:

• A two hour shoot on location
• Editing / artistic enhancements
• 10 images
• All 10 images sent to you in both
• High-resolution, perfect for printing any size
• Low-resolution, perfect for online viewing, web devices or for sharing on social media   (Extra images can be bought for 10 pounds an image)

• 1 x a3 professional prints
• Opt in for a New Born book for £50 extra.

Or until October ONLY the incredible offer of.....

• £300 for Sheffield and Cambridge clients. For all other clients travel is extra

Each shoot includes:

• A two hour shoot on location
• Editing / artistic enhancements
• 30 images
• All 30 images sent to you in both
• High-resolution, perfect for printing any size
• Low-resolution, perfect for online viewing, web devices or for sharing on social media

• 2 x a3 professional prints
• Opt in for a New Born book for £50 extra.

'Bump to Baby' image prices and 'Bump, Baby and Beyond' image prices coming soon.

www.sammisparke.com

info@sammisparke.com

07879 423231

Themed Days for your amusement. Presenting Follow Up Friday.

So my new thing is trying out themed days of the week. Today is Friday and my themed day is Follow Up Friday ‪#‎followupfriday‬ (worth a try) where I look back at some of my my lovely returning clients/

 families too see how they have grown. You will have seen a lot of this little guy on my website but he is just so damn photogenic, as are his two new twin siblings. Through his first few years here is Leo. www.sammisparke.com

Mothers Day Photo Package. A pressy they will LOVE.

The Mothers Day Photography Gift is a thoughtful and unique present guaranteed to put a genuine smile on a mum's face come the 15th of March.

Who Is this present perfect for:

Your own mum
Your Grandmother(s)
Your wife or partner

..and for the Grandmother's out there, this is a perfect pressy for your daughters and if you wanted to look at this cynically it is a great way to get some beautiful new photos of the family too :)

How does it work and will they have something to open on Mothers Day?

You book the shoot today and if there is time then a personalised voucher will be sent in the post to arrive on or before Mothers Day weekend. If you book just a little too late for me to post the voucher then I can either email you the voucher so you can print it off yourselves or I can send a digital version that will arrive in the mum in question's inbox on the 15th of March. 

How does the actual shoot work?

The shoot is a mini version of a package I offer on my website Family Photography. 

First you organise the family and decide on a location to meet for the shoot. Outside among nature is usually best and if there are children involved then somewhere with a park might do very nicely. 

I spend roughly an hour with you all. I take a mixture of posed and natural, reportage style shots of everyone just being themselves all interacting and having fun.

The shoot includes:

• A personalised voucher sent by email to arrive 

    on Mothers Day

• 60 minute shoot on a location of your choice

• 10 images for digital download (all chosen by you from a selection)

• One A3 professional print

Cost £100

This deal is open to anyone in Sheffield, Cambridgeshire and Bedford.

Contact: info@sammisparke.com

My New Website. To thine own self be true.

I have a brand new website. Yay!

It is a site, a site which has taken an inordinate length amount of time to come to fruition.

www.sammisparke.com

I knew almost exactly a year ago it had to be done. I already had a website, two in fact; one for the babies, children, family and wedding photography I did and the other for the corporate, business, event and commercial work I undertook but here was the problem apparently. 

I needed all my work in one place.

I understand the advice. It was advice I took from the hugely knowledgeable South Yorkshire based PR guru #FayeSmith whilst i was on her February #BrandBooster course.

It turned out my brand was a little confused.

What this year of putting the website together has achieved, aside from a pretty fab website, is that it has lead me to a much better understanding of the type of photographer I want to be and therefore how i need to proceed, the work I need to prioritise, my desired cliental and how exactly to market myself.

Courses like Brand Booster in Sheffield, UK, run by Faye Smith, are exceptional at cementing in place in your own mind and the consciousness of the people around you who you are, what you do and how you do it.

So far this seems like a thinly veiled promotion for the Sheffield Brand Booster - I assure you it's not (though if you are a new or struggling business I cannot recommend courses like BB enough).

What this is about is an explanation for what you see now as my current website - my contemporary portfolio of work.

So here we go... this is my raison d'etre or maybe more accurately the motivation behind the madness: 

My updated website's home page shows mainly the creative, lifestyle family photography I do. It includes primarily baby, children and family photoshoots, wedding photography and artistic photoshoots. 

It is my ambition to do more of these types of shoots and my ambition for each type of work correlates with the order I've mentioned them in and the frequency with which they appear on the home page.

Some may find it strange that I have neglected to include the other work I do on the home page, work I do plenty of including corporate headshots (which I really enjoying doing) music photography (I love) and event and website work which is work I respect. 

Not having these areas represented on the home page (even though they are represented in my portfolio) has been a difficult decision for me because I still need this work and am good at it.

What I had to put first was my brand and what I want to be doing with my photography in the next few years and after I asked myself that question there was absolutely no doubt in my head about the answer. I want to be an exceptional family photographer with a specialism in lifestyle baby and children photography. I want my reputation to come before me and I want my style of work to be recognisable. We can all dream ;)

So, in a bid to make this happen I needed to represent only on the home page the work I want to be synonymous with and I hope very much I've done the right thing. Only the next few months will tell.

The site, although lunched is in need a little preening in the removal of some of the photos from the slideshows - I am told 10-15 is a healthy and professional amount of images per slide show but achieving this is incredibly hard as I have very little objectivity left with regard to what needs to go. 

Anyway, I open up my new website homepage content dilemma to you all and anyone who might have a considered opinion on it. 

Either way I'd love any feedback on the site.

www.sammisparke.com

Signing off for now, Sammi