Increasingly, the letters and comments coming in here ask about photography.  What gear do you recommend?  What books should I read?  How do you….?   If you frequent the blogosphere you have probably run across some stunning images on many inspiring sites.  You may have dreamed over capturing your home and family in similarly breathtaking vignettes.  So you start surfing, start experimenting, and often hit a wall.  

I am a linker more than a writer and I don't like to reinvent the wheel. So if I can point someone to available info I do.  But I noticed that most of the tutorials out there focused on manual photography and presumed a lot more background knowledge than most people just opening the box on their camera possess. There are workshops available, but those often run several hundred dollars and fill up quickly.  And those workshops also require a dslr camera, often with a prime lens.

Many moms writing with questions don't have fancy cameras nor the time nor money to learn to use one. Most people are pointing and shooting.  And that is ok!  There is good news and bad news for wanna-be momtographers.  Let's get the bad news over with first. 

The pro-mom-tographers online are by and large shooting with some pretty amazing gear.  Most pro photogra-bloggers have fullframe digital cameras, the two most popular being the Canon 5d mark II and less often, the Nikon d700.  Some, like Pioneer Women step it up even further with the likes of a Nikon D3X.  Some of the most popular lenses used by photographers I know are the Canon 50mm 1.2 and the Nikon 70-200, just for general reference.  Are the dollar signs adding up? they have been for me over the past several years.  But wait.  That's not all. 

Most of those images are edited with software like Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3.  (That changes annually.  The photography community is abuzz with discussion of the new Lightroom 4 upgrade.) Often those images are also processed with photographic actions and textures which can run $30-130 per set.  In order to ensure everyone is seeing the same colors the camera/monitor/printers are calibrated using software running a couple hundred more. Those gorgeous photography flash blog templates run $100-300+.  Someone needs to install and personalize them.  The list goes on.

There is an old saying that it's not the camera, it's the photographer.  This is true.  And false.  A master photographer can totally rock out a point and shoot shot, largely because he/she knows the principles of exposure and can use light, angles, and the compact camera's tools to their highest potential.  However, there is no getting around the fact that good glass (and all the rest) does make a difference.  Pro's aren't investing $1200+ per lens for kicks. The technology is improving all the time and today's equipment can produce images only dreamed of years ago. So, assuming you know how to use it, yes, better gear can mean better images.

Does that mean you need to break the bank to capture beautiful pictures of your life?  Nuh uh.  

A periodical I read as a young woman used to run a column called What is in Your Hand?  It challenged us to look creatively at what God had already blessed us with.  Are we using all our current resources to their fullest potential?  Do we know our gear inside out?  Are we tapping into all the tools available on free or near-free online editors? Very often a friend will complain about her pictures and a quick look reveals a simple fix. 

Advanced imaging gear may or may not be in your future but you can probably be taking better pictures with whatever you have right now.  Case in point, my son's friend who sold black and white images taken on a disposable camera. 

So first things first.  Get out the manual your camera came with. You don't even need to read it all right now. Start with a few basics.  Check your file size and quality.  Are you set to Large for size and Fine for quality?  Start there.  Anything else is not going to look great when you print.   We had a string of bad pictures from the point and shoot on trip once and realized it had been set to email attachment image size. 

If you have ever played around with settings, or have children who may have,  be sure you know how to return to the camera's factory default settings.  Again we had an instance when I first started to learn manual photography where I went a long stretch with underexposed images.  After much desperate surfing I realized that I had hit the exposure compensation button and it never resets by itself. I hadn't yet memorized the icons on my LED screen and had no idea it was even on anymore.   My manual told me how to reset the camera and we were in business again.  So go ahead and experiment!  But know how to start fresh again. 

More to follow.  Come visit next weekend. : )