When the hubby and I decided to invest in a DSLR system, our main objective was to shoot lots of great photos of our children and family.

One of the hardest tasks was to shoot great shots of the children. They are such a mischievous and animated bunch that it is almost impossible to get a group shot of them, all looking nicely smiley. Most of the time, there would be a few monkey faces or emo expressions among them. Haha..

I’ll share a trick that I commonly use when I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get everyone smiling nicely, AND with eyes opened, AND looking at the camera properly at the same time.

Shoot multiple shots, holding the camera in the same position.

The kids don’t need to know that you didn’t just take one shot. And there’s no need to ask them for “One more! Just one more!” shot. Don’t use this line on the kids. It’s a deadly piss off the kids line.

So here’s what I got last Christmas. I shot 3 shots of our children in this position. They were lined up from the youngest to the oldest.

Snapshot (1)

Snapshot (2)

Snapshot (3)

My favourite shot was Snapshot (2), because all the kids were looking straight at the camera and they were smiling. It is really rare to get a smile that gorgeous and straight at the camera from our boy (the tallest kid, 2nd from left) and this shot became the most precious instantly.

BUT, the problem with Snapshot (2) was that two of the children had their eyes closed. So fortunately, I had snapped two more shots in that same position. In Snapshot (1), the first child’s eyes were opened, but the other one’s were still closed. In Snapshot (3), both children’s eyes were opened!

So in Photoshop, I cut the eyes of the children in Snapshot (3) and pasted them in Snapshot (2). And then arranged the eyes properly and used a eraser at 50% opacity to blend in the sides.

There you go! A beautiful shot of the kids in our family. =)

I totally love this shot and we’ve made this into bookmarks for our books and bible.

So the next time you’re trying to get a group shot of children, instead of bugging them to look straight at you and smile nicely. Just chat them up and keep snapping. And adjust for the perfect shot later.
 

Last evening, the hubby’s cousin visited and had dinner in our home. He bears an uncanny physical resemblance to our boy. And all of a sudden, I really missed the kids.

I miss the laughter in this house when they are around.

I looked at some of the photos that we’ve taken, and realised that I never did write about that trip we made to Sentosa Island back in December 2009.

It was a fun one. Memorable in a way. We queued for a long time to visit the Underwater World and eventually gave up when the queue didn’t move. That’s why there was camwhoring and funny faces. =)

And the luge was utterly disappointing because we’ve done the original luge at Rotorua in NZ, and this was frankly quite pathetic in comparison.

The kids were bored and the only thing that cheered them was the luge camera that snapped just as the chair lift brought us back to the starting point.

The first time we passed that camera, the kids had stuck up their middle fingers at the camera. They felt that the Singapore Luge really sucked! We later saw in the photo that they were grinning, I was grinning at them and the hubby was giving them a “hiyoh! don’t do that!” fatherly-look.

The second time we passed that camera, the kids made both of us stick up our middle fingers too. Hahaha.. The photo turned out to be fun and funny. Gosh! No monkey faces! Both of the young ones smiling so nicely! It was too precious a shot not to purchase, despite the vulgarism. Hahaha!

So we bought that photo and received a dirty look from the luge staff at the photo printer station. I mosaic-ed off the rude signs we made to put the shot here. =)
 

I learn all the stuff I know on photography online.

It isn’t really my choice. If I were in Singapore, I would sign up for some decent photography classes immediately. I’m sure I would learn a whole lot faster.

But I’m in NZ, where the classes are not only expensive, I am skeptical of the standards of their classes too. No offence, I like this beautiful country but the standards of their deliverables and outputs have many a times been sub-par for me. I blame myself for being Singaporean and used to super high quality and efficiency.

So I have hunted down lots of great sites on photography and read tons of blogs of photographers to learn. And one of them was the site of Miz Booshay. She is a self taught photographer and is a great inspiration to me.

And last week, I stumbled into one of her articles, where she talked about printing her photos on large canvas. Her daughter had a giant beautiful canvas picture of herself. What a brilliant idea. I was inspired!

I decided to blow up two of our children’s photos on canvas and send to them.

Now first of all, when you want to give something that involves a photograph to teenagers, the photo must be cool. Try to pick something cool, something arty farty. I also converted them into vintage black and white.

Here’s the canvas print for our boy.

And one of our gal.

Next, find a good canvas printer and print those canvases.

I used Mpix.com and they were great. The canvases were printed and delivered in 3 days!

Canvases are framed and are ready to hang on the wall or place on the desk.

Don’t expect the kids to go ga-ga over it because kids are kids, they will think they look blah, no matter how good you think they look. But it’ll be something great for their room, or just for you to admire at yourself. *grin*

So, go on.. get your kids’ photos on canvas prints. Don’t just take lots of pictures of them and store them in a hard disk. Give them something to take and keep with them.

P/S. If you haven’t read and tried the Chocolate Cake that I had written about last week (see The Bestest Easiest Chocolate Cake), then please do take a look. I’ve just made it again over the weekend, and improvised the recipe further. It was TO DIE FOR. I swear it’s going to be the best chocolate cake you’ve ever made and tasted. Really, check it out. It’ll be worth it. *grin*

OR, if you hate chocolate, then do check out today’s post on Lemon Yogurt Cakes. They were really good too!
 

I caught this video on Youtube and laughed.

My father does that too, although not in such a obvious way. He too tends to leave my calls to my mother after a hi and how are you? In my previous relationship, for 10 years, my ex’s father never talked to us when we called, he would almost always immediately pass the phone to his wife.

The hubby struggles with conversation with the kids too. When they talk, he would ask the standard questions – How’s your day?, What did you do today?, Have you eaten?, What did you eat?, Who cooked it? and How’s the weather?. *grin*

Last week, in a webchat where I was in the conversation as well, the hubby had asked our boy – How’s the weather over there?.

To which, our boy had replied – Same as yesterday. Pa, you ask me that every day. The weather doesn’t change that much here, you know.. Hahahaha!

After the series of standard questions, there would be a lull in the conversation. I think at that point, the hubby would wish there was someone he could pass the phone to. Hahaha.. And usually by then, the kids would probably also take pity on their father and start telling him stuff about their day.

Is communication with parents and children very tricky for the men? Maybe that’s why most of us are closer to our moms.
 

On the hubby’s birthday yesterday, the kids and I arranged a surprise webchat session and the hubby got to see and hear the kids wish him a happy birthday.

The kids never fail to make us laugh and warm our hearts.

It may have been just a simple web call, but for the hubby, this was the best birthday present.
 

I had sent some cupcakes/muffins to my twin nieces for their birthday last week. And then yesterday, their brother dropped me a message in Facebook that went – “your muffins toooooooo gooood. toooooooooo goood”

I burst out laughing, and replied to him – “Hahaha.. mindblasting?”

It’s a private family joke. This is Russell Peters language we’re using.

My family is crazy about Russell Peters. Really. We actually switch into his lingo when we talk to each other and it is hilarious!

I’m not really into comedians and stand up gigs. But this Peters guy is one of a kind. Our kids had persuaded us to watch him last year. He can be rather rude, but he’s really funny. Sometimes when we take a step down from our “high & mighty adult status” and join our kids in their entertainment, we can find a lot of joy in it. =)

If you have no idea who he is, watch this. It’s my all time favourite and never fails to get me laughing my head off.

If you have time, catch the all time classic, $34.50.

And here’s one of his latest gigs, Red, White & Brown. That’s where the “toooo gooood” and “mindblasting” came from. =)

The chap’s coming to Auckland to perform on 14 & 15 March 2010. Anyone wants to come to NZ for a holiday during the March school holidays? We can all go watch his gig together!

Singapore Singapore Singapore

I’ll bet everyone has watched the movie, Avatar by now.

Everyone’s been raving about how great the film is. For me, it was rather predictable, but the fun was a big bunch of our family members had gone to watch it together in Singapore.

Before knowing the hubby, I have never gone to the cinema and had to collect like, 15 tickets for the movie. Now I’ve gotten used to it.

Here’s a really nice photo to remember the experience by. Some of us with our 3D glasses. Hee!

     Loving the 70s effect (Photoshop actions set) that I had used on this photo.
Singapore Singapore Singapore

These two weeks have been mostly family bonding time.

On Saturday evening, a bunch of my cousins, aunts and uncle joined my family for a crabs feast.

It was no small meal.. we had black pepper crabs, chilli crabs and salted egg yolk crabs!

My cousins organised a steamboat dinner last night and we had a great time.

Lots of good food and durians later, we proceeded to sing KTV till 2am. Northpoint Partyworld is DA BEST.. there’s a massage chair in the room!!! How cool is that?!!