April 29, 2018

Take 10 Frame-Worthy Photos of My Baby Son – 30-Day Personal Challenge Wrap-Up

Hello and welcome to Thoughts on the Good Life! Thank you for reading. I hope my monthly personal challenges inspire you to challenge yourself in ways that are meaningful to you. I’ve enjoyed so much positive growth in these past four months, because of these challenges. I wish the same for you!

A Successful Challenge

April was a beautiful month of photography for me, as my adorable photo subject was my 23-month-old son. I’m happy I chose this as my 30-day personal challenge for the month: “Take 10 Frame-Worthy Photos of My Baby Son.” It was my loving attempt to capture his baby cuteness before he graduates into toddlerhood on his upcoming 2nd birthday.

This challenge was a success. I’m happy with the resulting photos. I took about 1000 photos, and I carefully chose my 10 favorites. My skills aren’t perfect, but I’m thrilled with the results. I bought a wooden frame and made a collage, using scrapbook paper and sticky dots, which don’t wrinkle the photos like wet glue. I snuck in an 11th photo, taken by my mother-in-law, so I could be in the collage too. The finished product will go up in my son’s room.

At the beginning of the month, I posted 10 strategies for taking high-quality photos in my original article about this challenge. Now that the challenge is complete, I’ll list the 5 photography strategies I actually ended up using most this month, with new insights.

Photography Strategies That Worked

Spray and Pray: I took about 1000 photos to get the resulting 10 frame-worthy ones. In general, I kept the camera ISO and the shutter speed high, so I could freeze the action of my quickly moving little boy. I usually put the other settings on automatic.
Good Camera = Good Photos: A quality camera certainly makes it way easier to be a good photographer. My 10 favorite photos all came from my best camera, a Nikon D200, which is fast, responsive, and high-quality, with full manual options.
Be Ready: I kept my camera handy and my batteries charged as much as possible. I bought a new memory card that holds up to 3,500 photos, so I could forget my concerns about running out of space.
Shoot Outdoors: My 10 favorite photos were all taken outdoors. That’s because the lighting is great, and the natural backgrounds add so much beauty to photos.
Charm for Smiles: My son is in a phase where he doesn’t smile for the camera. But he does smile when someone is playful and fully engaged with him. This month I often relied on my family to do the charming, while I photographed the resulting smiles.

Overall, It makes me so happy to have these last chance baby photos, as my little boy grows into toddlerhood.

Thanks again for reading. I encourage you to take some beautiful photos of your own. Have a fabulous week living the good life!