Paying for Photography

[Firebird]

Do you make it a point to document your lives with photos? Are you inclined to invest significant time and money into buying your own equipment and learning about photography so you can get good photos? There are times I really wish I was into photography just so I could have some decent pics. DH wants to buy a "nice" camera (probably in the $500-600 range) when Babybird is born so we can take some good photos of her.

But honestly, I'd just as soon find a nice photographer who's willing to do a family photo shoot with us every year. We won't get nice shots of the day-to-day stuff but at least we'll be assured of getting really good family photos (in a non-Sears environment) frequently enough to "watch" her growing up later in life.

The lady who did our wedding photos, for example, bound them into an actual coffee table book (complete with captions). It took her approximately a month and it looks so much nicer than 100 junky, out-of-focus shots stuffed into an album. I'd happily pay for a family book like that every year and letting HER do the work of taking, editing, and binding the best photos rather than investing in our own equipment.

I think it would be kind of cool to have those books on display in the living room or whatever, in chronological order.

Anyway, just wondering how other non-photographers deal with this issue.

[midjd]

I'm blessed with a number of really talented photographer friends who are willing to work for food/booze . I doubt I'll ever invest in more than a point-and-shoot because of this.

Their regular pay rates are pretty reasonable, too - a couple hundred bucks for a few hours of shooting, Photoshop, picture DVD, and prints. Even at market price, I think it ends up being cheaper to have photos done once or twice a year vs. buying everything yourself.

ETA - a woman for whom my sister babysat (very artistic type) had taken a Polaroid of her son every day of his life. At the bottom of each, she jotted down a funny story, observation, or event from the day. I can't imagine how labor-intensive that must have been, but to have thousands of days/memories documented like that was amazing!

[Deleted]

If you have a big family reunion every summer that you want to have someone photograph that may be a good idea. Other than that, just point and shoot is the way to go. For other nice pictures that you want that come up through out the year, there are probably some friends you know that hobby in photography. It seems like every other person I know is an ameatuer photographer

[raeoflyte]

We do the professional photos now and get prints and sometimes an album. I also compile all of ours and families pictures and do an album each year. The one for us includes mine and dh's family events, and then I edit the albums and make one for our parents that focus on 'their' families activities and give them as christmas gifts. Using sites like snapfish or picaboo make this relatively simple, especially as I can convert my family to just upload their pictures directly to the site.

We all have pretty inexpensive cameras for home use. The best pictures of kids are candids so you don't need a really fancy camera (but you do want as a high a resolution as possible).

That said, I am contemplating photography classes and saving up for a nice camera because of how much I love our professional photos and would love to have more.

[Firebird]

Their regular pay rates are pretty reasonable, too - a couple hundred bucks for a few hours of shooting, Photoshop, picture DVD, and prints. Even at market price, I think it ends up being cheaper to have photos done once or twice a year vs. buying everything yourself.

Exactly.

The Polaroid thing sounds cool but again there's the issue of quality. As much as I love to see random photos of my friends' kids on Facebook (and I do!), they're not usually the kind of photos *I personally* would choose to preserve in an album.

There are exceptions and obviously some photos are better than none (I only have one picture of DH as a baby and one of him as a kid, I would love to have more ) but unless you are a professional photographer, most of those "look at my baby in the pool!" shots aren't very good quality.

[thyme4change]

www.notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=finance&action=display&thread=24997&page=1

[Firebird]

For other nice pictures that you want that come up through out the year, there are probably some friends you know that hobby in photography. It seems like every other person I know is an ameatuer photographer

Key word being "amateur"

DH disagrees with me on this but I think good photography is absolutely a skill and an art form. Like any other art form, it takes time to learn and is very difficult to do well. Your uncle Bob might have a nifty Nikon but I don't want him photographing my wedding unless he knows what he's doing.

I don't tend to care about this now (I hate having my picture taken) but I definitely want some nice photos of Babybird's childhood. That's why I like the idea of doing a professional photo book once a year. Our engagement and wedding albums are full of very fun, cute candid shots as well as the more posed "expected" ones.

[Firebird]

Aug 13, 2012 11:34:33 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

www.notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=finance&action=display&thread=24997&page=1

I never really go on YM anymore... maybe once a week to see if there's anything juicy. The real action tends to be right here

[Deleted]

With the technology in cameras these days it is fairly easy to take really nice photographs without too much training and work. Now, if you are looking for a true artist, that is something different.

Just having a DSLR that you know how to use is almost good enough. Buy a light and a nice flash and you have just about everything you need to take really great photos.

[shanendoah]

Here's the secret to professional photography and finding those good quality shots- they take 100 pictures, and then only show you the best 5, after they've been edited.
The reason most of us don't have really good quality pictures of when we were kids- film was expensive to buy and to develop. Therefore, our parents took one or two pictures, and that was it.
A good quality digital camera will take care of that. (Though I don't think you need to spend $500-600 on one- we just got a nice digital camera from CostCo for under $300, and you just got a CostCo membership, didn't you?) You can take a million pictures and easily throw out the ones you don't like. You don't have to pay for the film to be developed before you see what it looks like- heck, you don't even have to wait until you can hook the camera up to the computer. You can have it show you the picture right after you take it, or if you have it set up for faster picture taking, you can review the pictures on the camera and delete the bad ones before they even make it onto the computer.
But then, you can have a hundred photos, and print out the five you like, or send those to friends and family.

At the same time, for family photos, you obviously need someone else to take the picture (unless you have a tripod and know how the time delay on your camer works), so getting good quality family photos once every year or so is nice, too.

In other words, I don't think the ideas are mutually exclusive.
I'll post the name of the camera we got when I get home tonight. My brother has worked as a professional photographer, and while my camera is not the model he uses, it is the same brand, and he's in general very impressed by all their cameras.

[Firebird]

With the technology in cameras these days it is fairly easy to take really nice photographs without too much training and work. Now, if you are looking for a true artist, that is something different.

That's true to a certain extent (I took some really nice photos when I was with my ex using his equipment) but it still takes a certain amount of education to learn about lighting, position, which lens to use for what, how to shoot in raw, etc. In fact, when I WAS using my ex's camera to take nice photos, I was also getting the benefit of his experience. He would set it up for me and really all I had to do was take the photo. That's probably why so many of them turned out so nice.

There are a few iPhone-style candids of my wedding and compared to the pro shots (of the exact same moments), they are CRAP. Which is why I can never understand the whole "let's save money by putting a disposable camera on each table and letting the guests film everything!" mentality. I'd be devastated if the amateur candids were all we had.

[thyme4change]

Getting a professional photographer once a year will not accurately document your child's life. You need to at least have some snapshots. Halloween snapshots, opening presents on Christmas, family vacations, easter egg hunts, etc. You will want to remember them all. The best pictures are the ones that catch the kids doing something very kid-like, and the liklihood that your photographer is going to catch your child pulling the cat's whiskers, or putting a pair of underpants on his head, or hiding in their toy box - basically nill. And if you stage it when the photographer is there - it will looked staged.

You could probably find a used DSLR and get some of the great moments in between. You can get those photobooks made at Walgreens or Shutterfly. And you can still get professional pics done as well. But, unlike a wedding - the joy of your child's life happens all day every day, and you really don't know which moments are special.

[Firebird]

You can have it show you the picture right after you take it, or if you have it set up for faster picture taking, you can review the pictures on the camera and delete the bad ones before they even make it onto the computer.

True, and that's probably what we'll end up doing for day to day stuff. In fact, this was basically my argument to DH for why we did NOT need a $600 camera, especially since I do plan to have us do the family photo shoot every year.

But the issue with this is that you're still doing all the work and going through that many photos deciding which ones to keep, then getting them printed, then putting them in albums, then posting them for the family to see is (IMO) a LOT of work, and not something I'm interested in doing on a regular basis.

[Firebird]

Getting a professional photographer once a year will not accurately document your child's life. You need to at least have some snapshots. Halloween snapshots, opening presents on Christmas, family vacations, easter egg hunts, etc. You will want to remember them all. The best pictures are the ones that catch the kids doing something very kid-like, and the liklihood that your photographer is going to catch your child pulling the cat's whiskers, or putting a pair of underpants on his head, or hiding in their toy box - basically nill. And if you stage it when the photographer is there - it will looked staged.

Definitely - that's why we need to figure out some way of doing the day to day stuff. I'm okay with buying a decent camera for this. It's just the time commitment I question. I guess I can just throw everything in month-labeled files on the computer and go through them once a year to find the best ones for an album of candids to go with the pro album I'll have us do. That could be the best way. Still a huge time commitment but only once a year is much more manageable.

[raeoflyte]

Make your husband do it.

Thyme is right though. I LOVE our professional photos of ds. BUT you'd be eliminating thousand of memories if you didn't take the other pictures. Holidays, swim lessons, cooking and making gigantic messes... They are really the parts of childhood that you'll want to go back and look through.

[thyme4change]

I just keep them all on the hard drive (with 2 back-up copies of course) and use them as a screen saver. If I ever want to do something special (like put them in a book, which will sit next to my old pre-digital photo albums, collecting dust that no one ever looks at) then they are available. But, my son just had to do a school project where he had to time-line his life. We were able to whip through all the photos and find all sorts of things. He picked really obscure milestones to document. (I didn't take pictures of the first time he got stitches. I didn't know he would want to tell his 3rd grade class all about it.) But we found the pictures pretty quickly by searching the hard drive. We also had a load of fun looking at things he did not put on his timeline.

[raeoflyte]

Aug 13, 2012 11:54:15 GMT -5 Firebird said:

Definitely - that's why we need to figure out some way of doing the day to day stuff. I'm okay with buying a decent camera for this. It's just the time commitment I question. I guess I can just throw everything in month-labeled files on the computer and go through them once a year to find the best ones for an album of candids to go with the pro album I'll have us do. That could be the best way. Still a huge time commitment but only once a year is much more manageable.

That's pretty much exactly what I do. I enjoy it, so the time commitment is okay and I can do it while we watch movies.

[Deleted]

We were going to do digital books when our daughter was born 3.5 years ago. So far we have yet to start one. We just keep them in digital form and look on the computer if we are feeling nostalgic. Picasa is a cool photo program and you can do still shot movies and all sorts of neat ways to look through pics.

[Deleted]

I take a bunch of pictures when I do take pictures and I will delete some before I download and then more after I transfer them from the camera.
My problem is that I rarely print any of them! I have a couple of really cute candid shots of the kids that I have framed, but the bulk of my "work" sits in the computer.

[Firebird]

Make your husband do it.

You mean the husband who thinks that if we buy an expensive camera the rest will take care of itself?

[justme]

Nikon has some nice consumer friendly DSLRs that aren't that outrageously priced (D3200 - and there's older models prob on clearance - the Nikon 1 which is a lot smaller and more point-and-shoot). And for everyday shots, the basic lens and the features within the cameras are all you need. There's so many automatic settings you don't have to worry about the bells and whistles - there's a baby setting, potrait setting, action, a ton of premade settings. And what I love - a remote. So you're not always stuck behind the camera, and you can take family photos whenever everyone's together with out doing the mad dash to beat the self timer. The camera will also take photos in high quality JPEG so you don't even have to worry about RAW files.

And as someone pointed out above, it's ridiculously easy (or as time-intensive as you want) to make the bound photobooks online. A lot of people share their own designs so you just have to add in photos and captions if you like the design.

[thyme4change]

Also - when we print them, we upload them to the Walgreen's site and then go pick them up. Those printed off of your home computer general suck. And it only costs a nickel to get a 4x6 (okay, maybe it is a dime.) You probably spend that much in ink and paper if you do it from home.

I took a candid shot of the kids when we were boating. It is the BEST picture of them. They are on the inter tube together, and laughing, and the lake is blue, and the mountains are in the background. It is just so perfect. My husband is pissed because I just grabbed the camera and pushed the button (10 times), meanwhile he has been studying and practicing to take the right picture. He cropped it and had an 8x10 printed and it is framed and hung on the wall.

[Formerly SK]

I consider myself a solid amateur photographer. I had no interest in the subject before kids came along, but once I had them I realized pretty quickly that I wanted a DSLR camera. Kids don't hold still, and when you are trying to capture their first smile, etc you want the camera to take the picture the millisecond you press the button, not 2 seconds later. Otherwise you miss 99% of the shots you are trying to get.

I understand what you are saying about crappy photos, but I can't imagine only having annual or semi-annual pics of the kids. When your kidlet is born you will explode with love for it and will want pics of it sleeping in your DH's arms, etc. There are about a zillion instances when I can think you'll want a camera with you. We just got back from a trip to Yellowstone and I took over 1000 pictures. Yeah, some are junk. But I easily have 100 "professional" ones. The brilliance of digital is you can take 10 pictures and delete them if they are crap. Sometimes I like to get action shots of the kids so I keep the shutter depressed as they go through a sequence. I may take 20 shots of them leaping over the waves, but I only do it because I want the perfect expression/body movement and deleting 19 pics is super easy to do.

Get a DSLR. You can just shoot in auto mode if you want. I started exploring manual after about six months and have shot in only manual for about five years now. I don't think it is that hard. I agree there is a lot of innate understanding of photography that a camera won't do for you, but I also think reading a couple books would give you solid pointers and wouldn't take much time (composition rules, etc). I have Photoshop, but there are much simpler photo-editing software out there that will let you fix/improve pics without too much time spent learning.

I carry my DSLR with me everywhere. It's big, but it's worth it. Last year at Disneyland my MIL lent me her point and shoot since it would be smaller and less burdensome to carry around. It sucked. I do believe quality equipment is worth it. But you can get a decent set up for 1K and it will last for years (unless you get into the hobby and start lusting after lenses).

[thyme4change]

I may take 20 shots of them leaping over the waves, but I only do it because I want the perfect expression/body movement and deleting 19 pics is super easy to do.

We have a series of pictures of my son jumping off the diving board. We put it into a movie and set it to "Back in Black."

We have both a DLSR and a point and shoot. I like the little point and shoot because I can have it in my purse, all the time. Of course, now that everyone just carries their phone, you will always have a camera with you. Even if the quality of the picture isn't perfect, the subject of the picture is.

[justme]

Skinnykids, or anyone else with a DSLR. I highly recommend this bag www.amazon.com/Lowepro-Passport-Sling-Camera-Bag/dp/B0039NLS4C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344878042&sr=8-2&keywords=lowepro+sling+bag It has made me WANT to tote my camera around because it's not uncomfortable or burdensome at all. I've taken it to Disney several times and found it nicer then carrying a purse with a point-and-shoot. It conforms to your body and has plenty of room to act as your purse and camera bag. I love it. Best money I ever spent. My dad wore it for 15 seconds before he ordered one for his DSLR.

[michelyn8]

Back when my kids were little, being untalented with a camera led to a lot of messed up photos and you were stuck with what you had unless you were taking Polaroids (if you didn't like it you took another one). Either way, it was expensive.

Now with digital, you see the shot right away and if its blurry or just plain bad, you can delete it and take a new one.

I bought my camera off e-bay for under $100. It allows me to get a little fancy as far as lighting (day, night, B&W, action, etc.) but I always use the "auto" setting. I don't really have an eye for taking photos but I usually get some pretty good shots and only print what I want to display or share with my Mom.

[Deleted]

DH's phone has the same number of pixels as our point & shoot (but not the DSLR).

[Formerly SK]

OK...not to hijack but how do you post pictures here? ;D

[Firebird]

We'll go with a DSLR in that case. Thanks for the recommendations, guys

[whoisjohngalt]

My DH was a photographer in his previous life, so we don't need a professional. That being said, I am the one who takes pics of bambinos on a regular basis. I have thousands pics of my 1st one, hundreds on my 2nd one and a few of my 3rd. I refuse to take any "family" pics until I stop looking like a cow who swallowed a whale.

Lena

ETA: I have a pretty good camera that I got a few years ago and it wasn't crazy expensive