Mommy moment. My littlest is two today. She brings joy, cuddles, sweetness, and love to our house every day and we are so thankful to God for this precious little girl. He is so good to give us such a good gift.
On a side note, a friend texted me yesterday and asked if it would be a good day to take her daughter outside and snap a few valentine’s pictures. The day was overcast and nice but difficult to tell if it would rain or not. My reply to her was a definite, YES! In fact, her text is what prompted me to take my birthday girl outside and snap the above pictures after her afternoon nap.
Overcast days are great opportunities for picture practice with little ones for several reasons. There will be a nice, natural diffused light thanks to mr. cloudy which means that you don’t have to worry about weird shadows ruining your photos. Even with a great overcast sky there are still a few things you can do to improve the pictures you take of your fast paced child. Biggest tip – have them look UP. Take a look at the picture-quad up there of my little girl. Notice how the top RIGHT photo is cute as can be but there are still some dark “raccoon” areas around her eyes and shadows under her chubby cheeks. This is because I was squatted down and looking straight across to her through my camera. Usually, getting down on a child’s level to photograph them is a good thing, however, when you can take advantage of a beautiful overcast sky, by simply having them look UP you’ve done three things, 1) eliminated the shadows around their eyes, nose, and cheeks/jaw; 2) you’ve easily brightened their entire face and softly lit it with diffused skylight / cloud-cover; and 3) my favorite… you’ve allowed for a beautiful catchlight to enter their eyes as in the very first image of this post and the bottom RIGHT picture in my photo-quad. By just getting above your child and looking down to them as you do all day as a parent, you photograph their small frame from the perspective you see it daily and, on an overcast day, you’ve got a dang good picture to show for it.
So, get out there mom-tographers! Grab that DSLR that you got for Christmas and try photographing your kiddos on an overcast day… there will be plenty of them in the coming months.
I leave you with a little video of us singing happy birthday to our birthday girl. I love her little “hand dance” at the end of the video. Gosh I love this girl.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/50CZzoSNtR8]
