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This month, we took the girls on our first flying trip as a family of five (say that ten times fast). Travel is important to us. When it comes down to choosing how to spend our time and money, I will always choose to have experiences over things. I want to impart that on my kids. When we had baby #1, we certainly didn’t have much in the way of things, but we were on the go all the time. By the age of two, that girl had logged more frequent flyer and road miles than probably many adults. I was smug about how easy it was to get out and around, how silly it was to use kids as an excuse to stay home. Let me be honest, I was terribly smug about a lot of things when it came to parenting. I had it all figured out. Noooo problem.

Then we had baby #2. Insert the sound of screeching brakes. Suddenly everything was exponentially harder. I’ve had a couple of friends comment that since I chose to have a third, the transition from one to two must have been easy. Not true. I’m just crazy.

But I digress from the topic of travel. Air travel, as a family, slowed down to almost never. Road trips have been limited to two states or less. There have been other extenuating reasons why we’ve left home less, but the number one has been laziness, or maybe fear. It is WORK to take young children through airport security, with carseats, and diapers, and enough snacks and diversions to get you through the longest possible flight delay. It’s exasperating to try to find a clean bathroom to take your toddler into when you’re in the middle of nowhere on the interstate, not to mention taking 50% longer to get to the destination than it does without kids.

Now here we are with three wonderful, precocious, high-energy, high-maintenance little girls. Thankfully, going from two to three has been much smoother. And we have decided that enough is enough. We are going to get back to getting out. Not just to Atlanta, which we love, but to explore what else is out there.

Thank goodness, I can report that the trip was successful. We managed to fit in a lot of activity and time with family, and had zero MAJOR meltdowns. Small meltdowns are to be expected, dealt with, and forgotten. We are a family with four females. Realistic expectations are key. I couldn’t be happier and am feeling empowered about the BIG trip that we are setting our sights on in the near future (more on that later).

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Doulananda Birth Services and Jennifer Mendoza Photography are happy to announce our new partnership! Because we share a passion for celebrating and supporting families, we are joining forces to provide photography services to Doulananda HypnoBirthing students and doula clients.

With our likeminded approach to creating experiences that honor each of our clients as individuals, we think that our collaboration is a great fit and benefit to Doulananda families. Each family will receive credit for one maternity or newborn session with Jennifer Mendoza Photography. This is a $300 value, but is complimentary to you with the price of tuition, or doula fee.

The phases of pregnancy, birth, and new parenthood are among the most beautiful and fleeting in our lives. Together we are committed to making it a positive and joyful experience that will be captured and cherished for generations.

If you are expecting, or may be in the near future, I encourage you to consider taking a HypnoBirthing class, or consulting with one of their doulas. I did both, with my last pregnancy, and with beautiful results! I’m thrilled at the thought of the families and babies that I will get to meet as a result of this partnership.

This is one of the very first photos of me, T, and baby CA, taken by our friend, doula, and HypnoBirthing teacher, Melissa Johnson (thank you for, on top of everything else, having the presence of mind to grab my camera)!

A sneak peek from my last pre-Christmas family session of the year! A few newborns on the horizon, but it is up to them whether they will join us before 2012. I am crossing my fingers that I will even get to capture the home birth of one special baby boy this month.

A quick thanks to all the amazing families I have had the privilege to work with this year. As my own family has grown, I feel very lucky to have been able to continue do this work that I love. It is an honor that you trust me to document your lives.

Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit.  -Bill Cosby

I met this mama just weeks before she gave birth to her son, and we have had dinner together with three other amazing ladies just about every month since then. I liked her immediately because her laugh is contagious and she always calls it as she sees it, no matter how (in)appropriate. We call our dates “Moms’ Night Out,” so while I hear a lot about what is going on with her family, I rarely get to spend time with her AND her family. This was a special treat for me to get to see and photograph her with the men in her life.

Beautiful light + beautiful family = one happy photographer!

It was almost a year ago that I had the privilege of photographing this baby boy as a newborn, so I was very happy to get to have the whole family back again for a mini session.

It’s the busy season for me and my fellow family photographers. The weather is more comfortable for outdoor sessions, and the organized ones among us have already gotten their family portraits taken for cards and presents! (Confession: I do not YET belong to that group.) Here are just some of the happy clans I’ve been lucky enough to work with lately.

I heard some folks at the grocery store grumbling about the Christmas items already on display. I used to think it was silly, too. But the busier life gets, the more I understand. If I don’t start early, it may not happen! Even though I’ve been planning for this season for months, I still am shocked to realize that Thanksgiving is in TEN days!

And, are you sitting down? Christmas is 41 short days away!

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Here are few highlights from one of my recent Atlanta Mini Sessions.

A fun family I spent a recent cool morning with, in one of Atlanta’s great old neighborhoods. I lived there myself, a decade ago.

Last part in the series! Check out the first two posts below or here.

The first six tips should be getting you closer to taking less and better photos. These last few will encourage you to make the most of your images AND the moments which you are trying to capture in the first place.

7. Print more.

There are many great uses for digital images (Facebook!), but I think that we still want to have those keepers that we print, display, give as gifts, and that make us smile every time we pass them in the hallway or on the mantle.  Take the time to get your favorites printed, framed, and up on those walls and shelves. And please get them printed by a quality lab. A bad print can ruin a great photo, and that is tragic. A print should be beautiful – good color, quality paper, thoughtful presentation – the day it is made and just as good one hundred years from now. I recommend Phototechnika locally, and Mpix.com online. Lately, I have been obsessed with Pinterest. You can find great inspiration there for ways to display photos in your home. Join me there at http://pinterest.com/jenmenphoto/, but be warned: it is highly addictive for the visually minded.

8. Don’t miss the moment, in the moment.

Someone I love once told me that her dad missed most of her childhood, even though he has it all recorded on VHS. Don’t be that parent who is so caught up in getting the photo, or recording the video, that they forget to cherish the moment as it is actually happening. Get a few photos for posterity, then put that box down and live it. Being a more confident photographer will help you to do just that.

 Movie night with my daughter and her animal friends. It was too cute not to take a photo, but I would have missed so much more if I had not taken the time to snuggle and enjoy the way she cackles unabashedly at the funny parts. 

9. Read your manual, then try to shoot in manual.

When you are ready to dig a little deeper into the technical aspects of photography, start with your camera’s manual. Learn what all those buttons actually do. Most of them will be useless to you, but knowing what they are will make them less intimidating. The better you get, the less buttons you will need. The goal is to be able to shoot in manual mode because then you will have the most control over the images you make.

 

10. Let someone take your picture.

This isn’t just a shameless plot to convince you to hire me. Of course, I highly recommend investing in professional portraits at least once a year, but here I am talking about your spouse, extended family or friends, or older children. When it comes to family photos, one parent, usually mom, ends up being the main photographer and therefore gets left out of most family photos. Some moms are comfortable with that for many reasons, and will happily go for long stretches completely absent from the family’s visual chronicle. If you are one of those people, remember that the photos are not just for you, or those you share your online albums with, but they are for your kids and their kids. They want to see you, in your prime, as the young, beautiful, busy, and multi-faceted person that you are. Right now. Not just on holidays, or after you’ve lost ten pounds. Refer back to my first tip. Family photos are about telling a story, and you are a central character in that story.

 

As the title suggests, this is the second part of my exciting trilogy of tips for parents wanting to improve their family photography. Part 1 of the series is below or here.

I hope the first three tips were helpful and inspired you to try new things while taking photos of your kids and family this week. Here are a few more ideas to think about.

4. Go towards the light. This one assumes you are using an automatic setting and on-camera flash. If this is too basic, you’re ready for #9.

If you squint when looking at your pictures, do you see the people as dark silhouettes on a light background, or bright white faces on a black background? This is caused by pointing the subjects away from the sun (or light source), or popping a flash right onto the subject, leaving everything else in the dark. Whenever possible, use natural light to your advantage. An old trick is to hold your hand out flat but turned with your thumb up (like you’re going to shake hands). Notice what side of your hand has more light, and turn your subject’s eyes toward that light. If it’s noon on sunny day, you will want to put your family in the shade, but try to keep the background shaded as well. If you have to use the flash, back up from the person/people so the flash falls around them and not just on their nose, cheeks and forehead!

Bright sunny day at the beach. Great for tanning, not so much for photos, so I took these cuties to the shady side of the lifeguard station. The images in the center and on the right, would still be challenging when you’re using the auto setting, but they illustrate how bright it was that day.  Simply turn towards the shady wall, and the one on the left would work for most cameras.

 

5. Take a look around.

Before you click, look all around the screen or viewfinder at the entire composition of your photo. Is there a lamppost sticking out of someone’s head? A random tourist strolling by in the background? Are Junior’s feet cut off? Is Dad’s arm missing?

Here, I turned and found a cute moment between cousins. In my rush to not miss it, I snapped once and cut off a leg. Then I took a step back and got the image on the right.

Taking a second to be thoughtful and purposeful can make all the difference between a snapshot and a good portrait. And that leads me to my next point…

 

6. Shoot less.

Switching from film to digital has liberated many of us to experiment and enjoy taking many more pictures than we would have in the past when we had to worry about wasting precious film. However, it’s also given many a parent license to take a jillion photos of the same event with the thought that,  “one of those will come out.” But that leaves you with a jillion images to cull through later and still sometimes not one of those is a keeper.  Tips #5 and 6, will help you to follow #7 and 8…and you’ll have to wait until next week to get those last ones!

Have a good weekend, everyone. If you are in Jacksonville, the weather is supposed to be beautiful, so get outside and enjoy it. Keep these ideas in mind as you take photos (but not too many)! If you have questions or some success you’d like to share, email me. I’d love to hear from you. Finally, check back on Tuesday for the last few tips.

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