So let’s me tell you girls! This week was a bitch!

It’s hard enough to get hubby all dressed up and coaxed into taking pictures ( and mine is pretty good about it), but I didn’t realized how difficult  it would be to get all the kittens in place and behaving.
I thought it’d take a few treats and they wouldn’t be looking at the camera, but I never imagined that they would literally scratch and run and mew the whole way through.
I had thought Travis ( the skinny black one) would be the easier one to handle, but he turned out to be a nightmare. I couldn’t keep him still for longer than one shot and then he’d run away and hide under the bed (poor boy).
Jake( grey fluffy one) behaved amazingly well and just hung around us at all times, super relaxed.
Casper was only there if there were treats present (or the possibility of them), pretty obvious what he likes by his weight.

So let’s just say the shoot was a huge failure. When I wasn’t busy holding cats to make sure they don’t run, I was triggering the shutter ( forget about delay, I had to set it on instant), or paying attention to my pose/face ( which was the last priority as evidenced by the majority of the pictures).

So here are the best shots and the tips:

This is the type of image I had in my head. Expect for I didn’t think we’d have to have an iron grip on our black kitties.  The plan was to have then sitting calmly on our lap. No such luck! Knowing it would be hard to manage three cats, I made sure to shoot Jakey first and then clone him in. Disclaimer: Hubby looks super goofy here, because honestly we were laughing our butts off trying to pull this off. This is THE ONLY shot that worked, so whether he likes it or not, I am using it.

TIP 1:
Don’t expect to get a perfect shot. Feel free to rely on cloning to make group/family shots possible and easy

TIP 2: If photographing pets, have someone stand behind the camera and make weird noise to get the pet to look up. The weird pet noise was my husband and Jake was hypnotized. It was hilarious!

Since cats were being impossible and I loved the colors and the lighting of this area, I took an additional photo with just the two of us (not trying to hold onto our cats for dear life).

So then we decided to move onto the bed to see if that would work better and be a bit less formal. I think we got a few ok shots there.

TIP 3: Use treats when it comes to cats, dogs and little kids as a way of getting them to stay where you want them to stay

We really didn’t have much time to pose with all the commotion. So these two were the only actual poses we managed to do.

A few more shots:

And finally the outtakes:
You can clearly see what Jackey thinks about this whole photography deal!
Oh and check out how freaked out Travis was ahahaaaaaa!

So let’s see your masterpieces!

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In light of the upcoming Valentine’s Day ( and our 8th anniversary), I went ahead and changed this week’s theme from Arm’s Length Portrait to Couples Selfies. We are all photographers, some amateur, others professional, so we ought to be able to take our own couples photos, right? And what’s a better time to do that than the Valentine’s week?

The toughest part of taking selfies of ourselves and our hubbies is that hubbies come in two sizes: uncooperative and completely uncooperative. It’s practicallyimpossible to get our loved ones in the picture, let alone make sure that you have enough time to set up a tripod and work with the focus or use the timer. So I say: “Girls, take this opportunity and talk your boys into a couples photoshoot under the pretense of it being Valentine’s Day!”

Again, if you have a remote and a tripod, you’re already ahead of the curve. If you don’t have one, I recommend this Canon Wireless Remote ( it worked with my Xtiand with my Mark II)
and this tripod . I’ve gone over a few tripods and this one is cheap but really sturdy.

Get your loved one to commit to at least an hour of unlimited pictures, so that he wouldn’t complain and wonder if it’s the last one.
Shooting a couples selfie is a lot different than shooting another couple as a photographer. You can tell them how to pose, you can frame it however you want and at least your clients follow your directions. Here, you are limited. So stick to some basic ideas and locations the first time. Now the possibilitiesare endless: around the house, in your yard, at the beach, in the snow, in a park. Just make sure to stick with one location, because as we all know hubbies don’t last too long when there are pictures involved. So make it short and sweet.

Now that location is picked out, start with one type of shots, so that you didn’t spend too much time moving the tripod and boring your husband, because you’ll spend enough time running back and forth from the tripod as it is. If you don’t own a tripod yet, find an area in your house where you can prop the camera ( chair, table, counter top). Don’t worry much about framing or keeping the camera straight, you can always crop and straighten in post processing.
The greatest part of taking a selfie with your husbands/boyfriends is that you finally have a stand-in for your focus if you’re using manual focus or the camera’s timer. That saves a lot of time and headache. Simply position your guy where you two need to be and focus.

Learning how to take couples selfies really comes in handy when you travel, and on family holidays and birthdays and anniversaries. Who here has ever come back from a trip only to find that they have no photos with both you and your guy in it ( arms length don’t count) ?

So here are a few ideas for you new project:

The Valentine’s Day Couples Selfie

{all photos below are self portraits}

1. Pose around the house

2. Utilize your outdoor space

3. Use costumes

4. Get Fancy

6. Have some fun

7. Kiss away
(our first Valentine’s Day selfie)

8. Be spontaneous.
If you find yourself in a cool looking place, find the nearest trash can and snap away ( taken on a side street in Universal with the camera propped up on a trash can)

9. Use the power of sun: silhouettes and flares and backlighting.
Set your shot against the sun and watch the magic happen.

10. Don’t be afraid to get down and dirty.

11. Spice up the same ol’ boring shot with a bit of a tilt. Set your tripod at a random angle

12. Don’t discard overexposed, poorly framed shots.
Sometimes those can be saved with B&W and a good crop. You can’t be too picky when you’re shooting selfies.

12. Jump! Jump! Jump!

13. Close ups.
Don’t forget to zoom in and come a little closer. Close ups can be great when the location is questionable. It’s easy to focus on a close up, so keep your aperture low and your smiles big.

15. It’s all about LOVE
It’s easy to get so focused on the getting the right shot that you forget to pose. Look in each other’s eyes. Remember it’s all about you two.

16. Imitate your favorite photographers.
(Bruce Weber , the guy that shoots Abercrombie black and white stuff)

17. Be dramatic

18. Be natural.
Some of the coolest photos taken tend to be spontanous and candid. Well, it’s pretty difficult to be spontanious when you’re the one pressing the remote button. So after you’ve done your posed shots, try doing some “posed to look candid” shots.

Ok, I think I’ve given you enough inspiration! I can’t wait to see what you come up with yourselves. I know you have been waiting to take your couples photos, but never had the chance. So this is it! You will thank me for making you do this later LINK UP  BELOW! IT WILL BE OPEN TILL NEXT SATURDAY!

FOR YOUR FULL BODY SHOT LINK UP, SEE THIS POST
NEXT WEEK’S THEME IS ARM’S LENGTH SELFIE.

 I used to be a crazy photographer. I have 45,000 pictures from the last 2-3 years and don’t even have a baby to photograph. This year I’ve slowed down with my picture-taking, so when I woke up after Thanksgiving ready to shoot something, it was an urge I could resist, to my husband’s chagrin. 

We got ready to go get some Black Friday shopping done, happened to put on matching outfits, and after a quick look in the mirror , I knew who my next photography victim was going to be. Since i stopped maniacally taking pictures, we haven’t taken any fun/good family photos in the past year. So I dragged A. around the house  like a mad woman armed with a tripod, a nifty-fifty and a Mark II. The result was a bit better than expected. 

Here are some of them: