So, I've not been quite as good at posting weekly blogs at the moment. The lead up to Christmas has been busy and as some of you may have noticed, I'm (or at least my bump is) starting to get a lot bigger. Something else I hadn't been doing so well at recently was taking photos of my son. There was never a good moment. All my SD cards were always full. I just didn't have the time. All these excuses were running through my head and I just kept leaving it be. If you've been putting off anything recently with the little ones, whether it's all sitting down for a meal together or just telling stories before bed, find a way to fit it back in; it's completely worth it. Our little ones only stay little for so long and it's the moments we share together that last forever. I finally felt inspired again after a photoshoot the other week and I'll tell you how I pushed past all the excuses and decided to make it work, even when I didn't think it would! It started snowing half way through a photoshoot the other week, and, after the photoshoot finished, I decided not to put my camera down just yet! I'm so glad I didn't as I'll treasure the pictures I got of my son in the snow for a lifetime. I setup the exposure on my camera as I would for an outdoor photograph and I was getting lovely pictures of Finley, but not of the snow! It was falling pretty fast at this point and I wasn't picking it up, so I decided to push the limits and see what I could do. I kept my aperture wide at f/2.8 and upped my shutter speed to 1/1000 sec. To compensate for the exposure I pushed my ISO to 1600, which my camera actually copes with quite well. Initially I wasn't sure but soon enough it started producing this lovely snow effect, which actually gave me a fast enough shutter speed to catch my son smiling which is a first. I had to do the entire set using my focus manually as the lens doesn't cooperate so well with tiny snowflakes flying around and gets easily confused, focusing in the wrong place. This wasn't such an issue as I am used to manual focus and it's pretty similar to photographing the 'splash' part of a 'Cake Smash and Splash' session! I've been dying to get some more pictures of my son's eyes recently, but he doesn't like keeping still. At 19 months old, I'm sure many of you are familiar with this type of toddler! He also doesn't respond well to having a lens close to him and he likes to run away, so my usual 50mm wasn't going to cut it! Instead I used my 70mm-200mm at about 90mm to give myself a good amount of space and used a lens extension to allow myself to focus a bit closer! The next part was to catch his attention for long enough to get a good shot. To do this, I had to come up with something different, as he quickly gets bored. I have glass sliding doors which lead to my garden and Finley has recently discovered how to open and close all sorts of doors. I decided to crouch down inside and tap on the glass to get him interested. To my delight, he saw me straight away and after saying 'mama' a few times, came over to help me out. I then managed to get my shots, and decided to get a few of his hair too, as my husband keeps talking about getting it cut! Finley has always loved bikes, and always points at them whenever one goes past. Whether he's in the car, or on a walk, at a playgroup or anything else, he will always notice if there is a bike around! So, as well as going on lots of walks, we try and get him out on his trike as much as we can. (He is actually wearing a harness for now and feet are on a separate step to peddles.) I don't usually bring my camera, as 'around the block' doesn't really make for good scenery, or that was my excuse at least. Instead of making more excuses, I decided to get a bit more creative. I worked with what I had, used basic composition rules and actually came away with some lovely photographs of my son, which, after all, is the aim!
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Clare ShapcottPhotographer Archives
December 2021
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