Tiggers like to bounce.

A chilly winter day is a great excuse to play dress-ups. (My daughter H, aged 17 months).

The great outdoors.

A road trip and a long weekend brought about the opportunity to take some outdoor photos.

My daughter H (aged 17 months) had a great time playing outside, and quickly became good friends with M (the dog).

These photos were taken with a (borrowed) Canon 400D with 18-55mm kit lens.



















My son A (aged three) enjoyed practising his walking, but stopped for a rest so that I could take a few photos.

She has some cute friends.

I finally had a chance to take photos of some of my daughter's playmates.

First up is R, who has the most beautiful big blue eyes, so I decided to make this one a b&w with just the eyes in colour. It doesn't show up quite as well in this small version, but if you click on it, you can see a bigger version of the photo.
Next is D, who was doing some serious thinking in this photo! I did get a nice one of him smiling, but I like this photo better.
Another cutie, B keeps us entertained with her laughing and clapping (and blowing kisses)... but not for the camera, so I will have to try again another time!
My daughter H was 17 months old in this photo. I haven't had much practice with backlit photos, so this came out a bit patchy. Adding the sepia effect helped even out the colour. And yes, she has finally had her fringe cut.

Practising her smile.

These days I often forget to take photos of my own kids.

Here's my daughter H testing out different smile poses.

She is 16 months old in these photos.

Summer swimming for my son.

In the warmer months we had the opportunity to give A lots of time in the pool.

He loves water, and we were excited to see him learn to float independently with the floaties.

Before we headed to the pool, managed to capture the photo on the left, I love the dreamy eyes.

A was 2 years and 11 months old in these photos.

Portraits of my daughter.

As part of the Morguefile course I was following, we covered the topic of lighting for portraits. I used my daughter as the test subject, setting her up in a room with just the one window for a light source. I took heaps of photos, testing different angles.


The photo below on the right is using a mirror to reflect the light on to her. Was also great for getting her attention.

H was almost 14 months old in these photos.

And then it was Christmas. 2008 that is.

I've never been one to give Christmas cards, but everyone around me was busy making them. For the hobby photographer, that meant beautiful photos of their children, with a variety of styles of layouts, backgrounds, fancy text and sweet messages.

I decided I too could show off my children in a festive greeting card, and here's what I came up with.

DSLR takes much better photos of the kids.

By now my son was 2 years and 7 months old, and it was a struggle getting him to stay still in one place long enough to take photos. And most of the time he was looking down at what he was doing. If I tried getting down on the ground and pointing the camera up, I ended up being tackled by an enthusiastic small child.

So it was my daughter's turn to be in the photos. She is just over 10 months old in this photo. I was very impressed with the difference you get with a DSLR camera. Not just in quality, but also it adds something almost magical - the blur of the background, it all helps you to really see your child. We spend so much time running around in our busy lives, and having these photos helps to recapture those moments, possibly more so than when we experienced them the first time, and were too busy to notice or appreciate it.

How I got started.

I received my first digital camera, a 5 megapixel Olympus D-630 zoom, as a gift before the birth of my first child. It is a "point and shoot", yet to me was more advanced then any of the point and click film cameras I had previously used.

I have plenty of blurry grainy photos of my son to look back upon, from birth onwards. It also has a video feature, which we have used to document his development.

My son is by nature a happy, smiley, sociable child. To the point that people have stopped us in the street to comment on it, it is the first thing people notice when they meet him, and even those who know him well still can't help themselves from remarking upon it to us. As such, he has been the perfect subject for photos. A family member once commented to me that he couldn't take a bad photo.

In August, 2008, I entered a national competition, Centro's Smile Photography Competition. The idea was to enter a photo that made you smile.

I entered because my son made such a good photo, not because I could take a good photo.

The photo was selected as a local finalist.






This photo was taken a few days before A turned two.