October Feature: SNAP! by Becca Robinson

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Hey Everyone! Today, I'm going to share a post from my sister-in-law, Becca. She is an amazing photographer, my newest sponsor and has some great tips and tricks to photography to share with you today... but I'll let her tell you all about it. Take it away, Becca!I am a professional photographer (and mom of threeyoung kiddos) from the Raleigh, NC area (see my website atwww.raleighfamilyphotography.com).  Manyof my clients ask me for advice on how to take better pictures of their kids,so I wrote an e-book to answer all those questions they have.  The book is to help you learn simple and straightforward techniques for takingbeautiful portraits of your young children.  It is written for moms (and dads) who don'thave the time to learn all the complicated technical aspects of photography. Learnhow to easily capture your child's natural expressions, and how to find theright light to photograph them in, indoors and out. Learn how to inexpensivelyassemble an indoor setup to take studio-like pictures in your own home. Figureout how to determine the ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed when using the manualsetting on your camera. And then the book will show you some posing ideas foreach age group (newborn thru age 10), and some simple editing and printing tipsfor what to do after you get a great picture. Covering everything from start tofinish, this is the one book you will need (whether you have an expensive DSLR,a simple point-and-shoot camera, or even your camera phone) to help you takebetter pictures of your children.Today I wanted to write a post about how I takeprofessional looking pictures indoors. Ido most of my indoor sessions in my client’s homes. So you don’t need a studio to take goodpictures indoors.  I made myself what Icall a “mobile studio” that I can bring anywhere or set up in my own homequickly and easily.  You can be asintricate in your indoor setups as you’d like. If you want something quick and easy just set up a chair in front of aneutral colored wall.  But if you wantsomething more elaborate you can make your own backdrops and floorings.  They are not even hard to make!
How to make your ownindoor studio
Flooring:  Do you have pretty hardwood floors that don’tproduce much glare?  Then you may be ableto skip this step.  But for the rest ofus we can make some fake ones!  Take atrip to your local hardware store and buy a piece of plywood; the size dependson what you want to do with it.  I havethree kids and my piece is 4x4 feet.  Ifyou will be photographing just one child you can get away with a smallerpiece.  Then go to the laminate flooringsection and pick up a carton of laminate “fake hardwood” flooring.  Make sure it doesn’t give off too much glare.Some of the laminate floorings seem to be shinier than others – go for the lessshiny.  I personally like the darker woodcolors but feel free to choose whatever color wood you like. Then go home andsecure the laminate flooring to your piece of plywood and you have a flooringdrop for portraits!
Backdrops:There are lots of options for backdrops. Seamless paper and fabric are probably the most common for DIYers (Do ItYourself-ers).  You can purchase Seamlesspaper at your local camera shop or through Amazon.com.  Go with the 53” wide rolls – the smallerrolls will be too small and the bigger ones are pretty unwieldy and not neededunless you’ll be photographing a large group of people.  These rolls are a great value and last a longtime.  Some of the colors of seamless paper are easier towork with.  Avoid the white – it is toughto work with unless you have a professional lighting system.  The super bright colors can cause a colorcast onto your subject (and I doubt you want your child to look like they havea pink face).  However, greys and tanswork wonderfully and don’t cause much color cast onto your subject at all.  You can attach the backdrops right onto yourwall with painter’s tape (make sure it won’t harm the paint job on your wall!)or command strips.  Then when you aredone taking pictures just roll the paper back up and store it in a closet tillyour next picture taking opportunity.
Moldingstrip: Just lining up the backdrop with your piece offlooring isn’t going to look right.  Tomake it look like an actual wall and floor you’ll need to pick up a moldingstrip.  You can get a pretty basic andcheap white molding strip at your local hardware store and use that to coverthe end of the backdrop where it meets the flooring piece.  You can just balance the molding stripagainst the backdrop, or you can attach the molding to the backdrop with utilityclips.
I arranged the indoorsetup here right in our tiny entry way to show that you don’t need a lot offree space to set up a little indoor studio. Once you have the materials, setting them up takes only minutes!  The plywood and laminate flooring piece seenhere is something I have used for years and it is still working great.  I just slide it into the back of our closetwhen I’m not using it.
Anda quick snap taken of my four year old on that setup a few minutes later:For more information,or to buy my e-book on Amazon go to this link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009JFYTHC#_
Thanks for reading!