What to Wear | January

January 3, 2024 by GmasPhoto 2 Comments

What to Wear | January

What to Wear will feature different palettes providing ideas when you plan the wardrobe for individual pictures or your family images during the holiday gatherings.

What to Wear | January features ideas for all family members: mom; dad; big brother; big sister and little brother and little sister. Have fun preparing your stylish look for family pictures!

It is not necessary to purchase new clothing for better images. When planning the wardrobe, do wash and dry the clothing. Immediately after drying, hang the clothes on a hanger. Or iron, if you like. The main goal is wrinkle free clothing.

Shoes do not need to be new either. New shoe laces is an inexpensive purchase to spruce up the look. Polishing leather or washing canvas shoes is another solution to brighten their appearance.

Have the socks match either the pants or shoes. This is important for anyone who may be sitting or squatting in the group. Imagine if the pants are navy blue, shoes white and you see bright green socks. Very distracting. Your eyes will go straight to the green socks and not the person’s face! However, if the socks were either white (matching shoes) or navy blue (matching pants), your eyes will flow over the person and land on the face/eyes of the person in the picture.

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra

Photo Ideas | Photography Tip

December 23, 2023 by GmasPhoto 2 Comments

Photo Ideas | Photography Tip

Hi, have you ever looked through your feed on your camera or phone and thought, “why don’t my pictures look as good as I thought they would in my head?” or “how can I get my pictures to look better?” Don’t worry, we all do it.

Today I am going to give you a list of must have photo ideas to use on your next vacation, at your next family get-together, or special occasion to make your pictures fun, meaningful and more pleasing to the eye.

1. Give your picture a “pop” of color and/or contrast. For example, if you rented a red car on vacation, park next to a grey or white building and snap a photo.

2. Shoot from a different angle. Photos don’t always need to be straight on. Try an above or below angle to switch things up.

3. Add little memories to your photo. For example, take a photo of your ice cream cone in front of the famous ice cream shop.

4. Make people look little. Shooting from far away or at an elevated location, making people look little gives your photo big impact.

 5. Golden hour photos (when the sun is just over the horizon) are always a treasure.

WW Update:
Since Start Date; -6lbs

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra

What to Wear | December

December 6, 2023 by GmasPhoto Leave a comment

What to Wear | December

What to Wear will feature different palettes providing ideas when you plan the wardrobe for individual pictures or your family images during the holiday gatherings.

What to Wear | December features ideas for all family members: mom; dad; big brother; big sister and little brother and little sister. Have fun preparing your stylish look for family pictures!

Shoes do not need to be new either. New shoe laces is an inexpensive purchase to spruce up the look. Polishing leather or washing canvas shoes is another solution to brighten their appearance.

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra

Taking Better Phone Pictures | Typical Edits

November 13, 2023 by GmasPhoto 10 Comments

Taking Better Phone Pictures | Typical Edits

Hi, Many people when starting photography get very lost when it comes to editing. When looking at a picture you just took on a nice camera, it’s really easy to look at it and think “wow, that looks great! what is there to fix?” Or maybe “I’ve got a nice camera that I figured out how to use, but I can NOT get my pictures to look like everybody else’s!” Well don’t stress it, because I’ve got some good ways to help you get started.

The 2 main things that photographers look at with each image is the tone and the exposure. Many cameras shoot pictures where the skin tone ends up looking too orange, too red or even too blue. Fixing the image so that the skin tones look natural and like the color of the actual skin can make a dramatic difference. The other major fix is the exposure. Is the picture too light? Is the picture too dark? Even with professional cameras, pictures can come out with the exposure off. The best way to judge if the exposure is correct is to look at the skin again. It’s very important to adjust the image until the exposure is correct. Even if it means making the sky extra bright, it’s more important to have the skin be the correct amount of exposure over everything else in the image.

The example photo I am using was taken just this weekend, not of people rather of the Autumn leaves. My preferred editing app for phone photography images is PicTapGo.

taking better phone pictures | typical edits — Picture of the autumn leaves straight from the phone.

The leaves on the drive caught my eye. I just really liked them. This is a good picture. Some would find it nice, color and all. However, I adjusted the exposure and tone. Here is my edited version.

autumn leaves — Exposure and tone adjustments.

What I like about the PicTapGo, it’s simple and has many filters available that is included with the app. After picking an image to edit, click filters and apply the desired one. I chose the Warm It Up and Lights On.

Each filter has a slider to adjust the strength to the amount you prefer.

adjusting edits — Adjusting the amount applied

before and after edits — Before and After

PicTapGo is available for iPhone. There are many different apps for editing as well. Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom and Snapseed can be used with either iOS or Android. I have personally used all of these and found PicTapGo to be the most user-friendly.

WW Update:
Since Start Date; -24.8lbs

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra

What to Wear | November

November 1, 2023 by GmasPhoto Leave a comment

What to Wear | November

What to Wear will feature different palettes providing ideas when you plan the wardrobe for individual pictures or your family images during the holiday gatherings.

What to Wear | November features ideas for all family members: mom; dad; big brother; big sister and little brother and little sister. Have fun preparing your stylish look for family pictures!

Shoes do not need to be new either. New shoe laces is an inexpensive purchase to spruce up the look. Polishing leather or washing canvas shoes is another solution to brighten their appearance.

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra

What to Wear | October

October 4, 2023 by GmasPhoto 4 Comments

What to Wear | October

What to Wear will feature different palettes providing ideas when you plan the wardrobe for individual pictures or your family images during the holiday gatherings.

What to Wear | October features ideas for all family members: mom; dad; big brother; big sister and little brother and little sister. Have fun preparing your stylish look for family pictures!

Shoes do not need to be new either. New shoe laces is an inexpensive purchase to spruce up the look. Polishing leather or washing canvas shoes is another solution to brighten their appearance.

Take Care. Best wishes, Debra