Of course, J still won't let me take pictures of him, even at the pool. I'm not sure why he is this way as I've had a camera in my hand as long as I remember, perhaps he's looking for a bribe?

Tips for taking pictures of kids who don't want their pictures taken

1. Do it anyway (in the hope they'll give up resisting the camera).
2. Create a distraction or have someone create one for you.
3. Use a flip out screen, drop the camera away from your eye and frame the shoot, look at them not the camera and press the shutter. Don't worry if your horizon gets crooked like mine did. You can straighten in post if needed.
4. Use electronic shutter/silent mode. Yay for mirrorless cameras. Most have an electronic shutter option. It goes without saying to turn off the focus assist lamp and the focus beep too.
5. Take a picture without their face in the frame or where their face is blurry or deliberately obscured. Sounds weird but capturing their hands doing or holding something can still be a great memory.
6. Get them to decide the terms of the photo. Sometimes my kids want me to document a particular action, trick or skill. Anything is better than nothing, and sometimes what they do is amusing.
7. Chimp with them. Show them the great shots and offer to delete any that are less flattering, this builds trust when they see what you're doing and that you aren't going to embarrass them in some way.
8. Bribery.

Conclusion

Don't give up trying to take pictures of your kids, it's why many of us bought a camera in the first place. Try to figure out the limits of what you child will allow and always think about how else you might be able to get a shot, even if it means being a little sneaky.

Digging around in my photos today, I realize I haven't posted the photos from the Kelby photo walk last fall. The day started off a bit wet, but soon dried up although the clouds remained for the whole day. Entrance to the beach area from the Dolphins.


The obligatory waterfall picture....

Macros are always an option when the weather is bad.

Time for some tilt shift. I love the way the boats look so small.

Every Spring for about a week, while the apple trees are in bloom, the dandelions in the grass also bloom. This creates the effect of white trees with a carpet of yellow underneath. I have found this one week to be the single most spectacular sight since moving to Kelowna in 2003.
Every year since K was little, I have wanted to dress her up and take her into the orchards for a photo shoot. But every year something transpires to stop me, whether it is rain (which closes up the dandelion flowers), or after school activities, we always seem to miss it.
This year I was determined to get to it, after all, just how many years can I make there excuses! K is 10 and the cutest factor is rapidly fading into teenage years when I doubt she'll be willing to pose for the camera. So I dragged both girls into the car and we went roaming round the neighbourhood looking for nice looking trees with lots of dandelions. The latest orchard fad is to dig up the old, gnarly looking trees and replace them with trees that grow along wire like vines. Great for the apple pickets but not so attractive. After hunting around we found what I was looking for.Of course, it had taken me so long to get around
Of course, it had taken me so long to get around to doing this the dandelions were starting to seed. Little "I" just loves seeding dandelions. Ever since she was old enough to talk she's called them "bubble blowers", I guess because the look like bubbles on the stalk and you can blow them like blowing bubbles on a wand. She will pick every dandelion in the field and blow it, never getting bored of the game.
Besides being a great girly photo shoot, it was actually a lot of fun coaching them and watching them play together.

I have been a long time digital scrapbooker, and paper scrapbooker before that. I made the move to digital as a result of having little kids around the house and not being able to leave scrapbooking supplies out for the time it took to complete a page with all the interruptions.

Digital has been great. I learned to use photoshop, learned to edit photos and basically had a great time filling up my hard drive with about 200GB of "supplies", papers, ribbons, button, and other embellishments. I got my prints made at Costco on 12x18 and trimmed them down. But building these digital pages took just as long as the paper ones - sometimes longer as the options were greater. For example, with paper - you can make it *any* colour in photoshop, you weren't limited to what you had on hand, like paper scrapbooking.

Earlier this year, after a hiatus from digital scrapbooking (and scrapbooking period), I discovered project life. I had already seen and used the 4x6 pocket protectors back from my paper scrapbooking days with CTMH, but the packs of cards already "matchy matchy" appealed to me, and I purchase 2 kits (Midnight and Honey) as well as some more pocket protectors with different shapes. I printed off all my 2*+ photos (I am now doing picks in Lightroom instead) from 2012 and 2013 and tucked them into the pockets, putting in cards from the kits - awesome! I got a lot done, but in the back of my head a little voice said - you only have 1 copy of this.

You see, with digital scrapbooking there is one *major* advantage - you can print multiple copies. One for grandad, one for nanna, one for our family, etc. You can't do that with paper. (Yes you can scan it or take a photo of it, but it's not the same).

Enter.... Project Life, the app.

About Project Life

Becky Higgins, creator of Project Life, and long time scrapbook template queen, has just released Project Life, the app (click the link to read more about the app).

So what is it? It's an app that reproduces the experience of the project life system but on your phone or in my case, my ipad. You are welcomed by an intro screen where you simply select "Make a Page".

Introduction Screen

Then you choose a layout by selecting Change Layouts.

Menu system

These are the same layouts as the pocket protectors so you can match your existing albums easily.

Choose a layout from the layout bar

Select the add photo or add card button

If you choose a journaling card, you then have the ability to add text on top. The cards feature the same sets as you buy on paper, Midnight is one of the 4 free sets and there are several other sets for a couple of dollars each, and additional templates for a couple of dollars each - but really you get quite a bit included in the app itself which is just $2.99 (and I think a bargain).

In about 2 hours, I made 8 pages using the system.

Saving, Printing, Exporting

You can save to ipad, photostream, email, flickr, evernote (basically anything) and even export to print! This is great if you take a lot of photos on your iphone as you have everything you need right in the palm of your hand.

I haven't printed yet, but the 12x12 export produces a file of 2760x2760 (230 dpi) which should be adequate - I typically create 12x12 digital layouts at 3600 (300 dpi).

Ease of Use

It is super easy to use, as my 10 year old made her first page in about 15 minutes with no help from momma.

Criticsms

Criticisms, well I have just one. Only journaling type cards can have text added. Yet there are some other filler cards with speech bubbles that *should* be allowed to have text. This is something that I'm sure they'll realize eventually and given there are lots of journaling cards in each set, its a small issue.

Here's the pages 

Conclusion