We had a fun Young Womens activity when Ana and I set up a mini-studio in the Primary Room and did a photo shoot with the girls. Then we printed out their photos so they could give them to their moms for Mother's Day. I didn't want to put photos of the other Young Women on the blog without their permission (besides the one above to show how Elsie sticks out like a lightning rod here in Hawaii), so here are the ones we took of my kids while testing the lighting conditions.
She can do ugly too! So versatile.
I have to trick him to get him to take a normal photo. Grrrr.
Elsie will pose forever though. She's very good and being still. And loud. At the same time.
And of course, Ana hates the camera.
Anyway, incredibly fun and easy activity if you want to try it with your group. We just set up white butcher paper on a moveable chalk board and I used the flash off of my Canon T1i, but used my trick diffuser (three sheets of white paper held in front of the flash to point the flash upwards.). It would have been better to have some light boxes as you can tell from the shadows on Ana's face, but I didn't have time to set up any (fake) boxes, so I think what we had worked fine, especially considering the flourescent lighting throughout the church. Make sure (as at anytime you have people standing in front of a wall, board, sheet, screen) that the subject stands at least 18 inches in front of the screen. You don't want to be able to see the shadows on the back wall. Also, if you want a more invisible look to your back screen, use a well ironed white sheet or do a better job taping up your butcher paper than I did!
The most important thing we tried to teach the girls is the "forehead forward and down" trick of photos. I was trying to get them more comfortable with having their photos taken and teach them to increase the likelihood that their photos will look like themselves. I just found a website and video that teaches you how to do it: Forehead Forward and Down Time for you to love your photo taken too!
