You know that you are taking a lot of (possibly too many) digital photos when a two year old sees you with your camera and then sweetly asks, “You want to take my picture?” This is what my grandson said to me recently when he noticed me spying on him, trying to take a cute candid shot with my digital camera. He then put on his sweetest smile and then gave me the perfect pose. He’s a natural (when he wants to be)!

I have another grandson, who when asked to sit with his brother and sisters, will tell them to just smile for one minute so I can get the picture. He knows that I will try to get the perfect photo and if they will just cooperate, they will get to escape sooner. Now this child of 11 years knows the routine! Unfortunately, for him and those of us trying to get a decent picture for our photo Christmas cards, this is no easy task. You see, he has four sisters, ranging in ages from two to nine, and a younger brother of three years. Have you ever tried to get six kids to sit for more than a few seconds? Don’t even think about trying to get them all to smile while facing the camera! I don’t think there is one among us who can’t relate!

Some of my favorite family digital photo Christmas cards are the ones that aren’t “perfect.” They show the one child folded in half, trying to get away while dad is holding him, grimacing as he tries to contain the slippery little devil. Or they show mom with the “look” on her face as she tries to will her daughter into submission. Now we all know the “look” just doesn’t work.

The moral of this story is that there is no perfect picture. Just imagine the future conversations that will arise when going back to these photo cards. I bet that the real conversation pieces will be the ones that weren’t absolutely perfect, but the ones that just happened!

In my husband’s family, there is never a shortage of pictures to choose from when creating our holiday photo cards! Now, I am not saying these are necessarily good pictures, but pictures non-the-less. It all started when my father-in-law got a new digital camera. After giving him a tutorial on how to use it, he would take digital photos of everything and everyone! Then it got worse when my first nephew was born. And now that there are four children in the family, you can imagine the ridiculous amounts of “cheeses” that go on during our Sunday dinners together!

There are not many requirements in our family for taking digital photos. Since the family is growing, you take what you can get! Here are some tips from my family to yours…

1. As long as a majority of the family is present in the picture, it is ok to snap that shot!
2. As long as half the people are smiling in the picture, it is considered a success.
3. As long as three people are sitting still and looking at the camera, it is a great picture!
4. No crying children is always a plus!
5. If you can hear the person talking next to you, everything is going pretty smoothly!

The unveiling of the photo that will appear on the next family holiday photo card is always intense because you are never quite sure if you made the cut or not! It is very humorous and you would have to know my husband’s family to understand, but it does keep the holidays interesting! ‘Tis the season.

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. From Grandma’s mantle hung elaborate holiday cards from all across the land…Uncle Ted in New Mexico to the left, Aunt Jessie in Maine to the right, and whose is that in the center? It’s your photo Christmas card!

How did you get to take center stage in your Grandma’s Christmas card trophy case? Easy! You have mastered the art of digital photography. When people see the term digital photos they get scared, like it is some technical term for a PC. Don’t be scared; embrace the change!

Winning Grandma’s prized Christmas cards spot on her mantle was easy…all I had to do was take a picture of myself wearing a bright red Santa hat and affix it to the Christmas photo card that I sent her. Who can beat that? Now if you even have some technical savvy and can touch up photos on your computer…watch out Uncle Ted! His Christmas cards won’t stand a chance to your Christmas Photo Cards.

Christmas is a time for giving, a time for peace, and a time to impress your Grandma so much that she puts you at the top of her gift-buying list! I bet you didn’t think those digital photos you took could be cashed in for a new DVD player or better yet, that new pool table you wanted. Yeah, it was worth taking the time to put that red hat on and snap that digital photo. And I bet you can’t wait to do it next year…I know I can’t!

Anyone can use a digital camera. Just point and click, right? The obvious answer would be yes for most people, but that’s only partially true. It depends on what you’re taking a picture of, if you’re taking a picture for your digital Christmas photo cards, what hour of the day it is, whether your subject is stationary, and also what type of camera you’re using. Did you also know that basic “point-and-click” cameras can be more efficiently operated depending on a simple button or angle used during shots?

One photographic technique that can produce an intense image is to take very close or straight on pictures in a dark-lit setting, specifically focusing in on the eyes. Softer lighting often makes for softer, less serious pictures. Ominous photos are very rarely done in bright, cheery colors. This is something to remember in the upcoming months, especially with the onset of Halloween or if you’re preparing to take pictures for your digital photo Christmas cards.

The flash is a great tool for lighting up a dark room, but with many cameras, the flash is so powerful that it washes out the whole picture and/or its defining elements. Try holding down the button halfway for a few moments before taking a photo and then pressing it to full…this can sometimes dull down the flash. Also, if its bright outside and you happen to be in doors, leave the flash off. Natural light can add a lot of depth to a picture. In either dark or light photos, be careful of back-lighting. It can often be a good feature while in some instances, it will very well ruin your photo.

No matter what type of digital camera you have, try playing around with the options. Simple options such as “Macro” will help you focus better on tight zooms or smaller items. Other buttons have other actions like image stabilization for fast moving subjects. Digital cameras are incredible pieces of technology, and with the correct knowledge, they’ll enable you to capture those special moments in time just as you’d like to remember them.

Every year since my kids were little, I would go crazy trying to get our Christmas tree decorated in time for taking pictures in front of it for our holiday photo cards. It was hard work getting the two kids (who didn’t really like to pose) and the camera-shy dog to cooperate for the multiple pictures we had to take…just to get one good enough to send to family and friends. Why did we stress ourselves out every year over this process?

Not any more! Let me share some photography basics that I have learned which have helped to ease the stress. Simply put: RELAX!

It doesn’t matter if the kids are posed like Christmas soldiers or little angels in front of your Christmas tree. It doesn’t even have to be a winter day. Your family and friends will enjoy the digital photos you took this summer at the beach, pool, or at the Disney resort with Mickey. Go through the photos you took when your kids were just being kids. Silly, spontaneous, in-the-moment photos are sometimes the best!

Try to pick a photo that depicts your kids’ personalities or many moods. Sports your kids like to play or even just walking the dog at the park are always fun ideas. Just make sure the sun is behind the camera so there is no shadow cast upon their smiling faces.

And you’re set to go! Now in the digital photo age we have it even easier. You can simply download your digital photos to a website like ChristmasCardsDirect and your photo Christmas cards will be en route to your mailbox before you know it. So start snapping!

Many of us are sure to grab the digital cameras for obvious social events such as weddings, vacations and birthday parties. When September rolls around every year, you’ll find me taking photos at a different kind of social gathering: a Rutgers football game.

No, I don’t have a side job as a sports photographer (although I admit, taking photos for a living sounds interesting!) I’m just a fan taking pictures for the fun of it. Ever since I graduated from Rutgers University, my husband and I have had season tickets to the Rutgers football games. Although the football team has improved remarkably over the past few years, there were some “lean” times when the team rarely won any games. But the team’s losing record didn’t matter to us because we had so much fun tailgating with our group of friends.

We’re the crazy fans who start tailgating at the crack of dawn on gameday and are never deterred by bad weather. As we drink, eat and chat, I enjoy taking photos of everything going on: my husband Dan, manning his post at the grill; our friend Lou, who we call The Mayor, schmoozing with the players’ families; and fans clapping along to the marching band as they play the school fight song. I mostly shoot candid photos of the festive atmosphere but I also capture some memorable posed photos. Our friends actually used one of the digital photos I took for their family holiday photo cards one year!

After the game, the digital photos are posted online for all to see and enjoy. That’s one of the great things about digital pictures – they’re easy to share! The online photo album immortalizes so many of the fun moments we’ve had at the football games. A few of us regularly take pictures on gameday so we’ve amassed quite a collection of digital photos over the years. It’s especially entertaining to look back at the digital pictures taken years ago to recall the great memories and appreciate the special little community we’ve created with our football pals.

Is it football season yet?!

For the past couple of years, my wife Susan has really been into the studying and tracing of her family history. Genealogical research is a complex process that involves more than affixing a collection of names on a pedigree chart. Genealogy involves identifying ancestral or descendant families by using historical records to establish biological, genetic, or familial kinship. Oftentimes, Susan spends entire afternoons and evenings on the computer doing her research.

One of the ways I have been able to help her is by going through old family photos and Christmas photo cards that she has collected over the years and scanning them into the computer. Some of the old photos are perfectly clear and don’t need any digital restoration at all. However, quite a few of the antique photos have lost a little bit of their sharpness or need to have marks or obvious cracks removed.

This is where programs such as Microsoft Picture It (which is installed for free on some computers) or Adobe Photoshop come in handy. Not only can old photos be cleaned up, but other editing features can also improve these older photos. The old photos can be resized or cropped, the brightness and contrast changed, or in the case of color photos, the color balance restored and red-eye removed. Once these procedures are used, new, digital files of the photos can not only be saved onto a hard drive or disc (CD or DVD), but the photos can be printed out, framed, and hung on a wall for all to see. It’s priceless to now have the ability to create digital photos of old family photos taken before this technology was in place.

For Susan, digitally restoring and preserving these family photos of long-gone relatives has brought her many hours of joy and happy tears.

I love to go on long hikes in the mountains, and with the onset of the temperate fall climate, it’s the perfect time to get lost in nature’s glory.

I live in the lovely state of New Jersey, and contrary to popular belief, it is not the arm pit of America. New Jersey is home to many beautiful landscapes, including the Ramapo Mountains, which is where I usually go hiking. There are numerous trails that wind along and in between the wooded hillsides, and Mother Nature always has a surprise hidden around every bend, which is why I almost always bring my camera along. I love snapping digital photos and then going home and reliving the moment on my computer screen. Two years ago I even used a digital picture that I took as the cover for my holiday photo cards.

I had quite an experience during a hike I went on last November. It was one of the last warm days of the season, and I wanted to get my final fix of nature before it became too cold and icy to go on the trails. I started off on my usual route…a flat trail that wraps around a lake at the foot of the mountains. As the trail dips behind the lake, I follow another path that ascends the steep slope of the hillside, which eventually leads to a rocky precipice that overlooks the valley below.

On this particular day, I stopped about half way up the trail for a quick water break and to take in the scenery around me. I don’t usually hike this late in the season, and it was surprising to see how barren the hillside appeared. All of the leaves had dropped to the ground, covering the slope in a carpet of oranges and browns. Even though everything appeared stark, there was something so beautiful about the peacefulness of it all.

I felt the urge to take some digital photos, so I pulled out my camera from my hiking pack. The sun was peeking through the naked branches and limbs, making for some spectacular imagery. I was in the middle of taking pictures of the horizon line when I heard the crunch of leaves behind me. I thought to myself, “Please let that be a human.” I slowly turned around and was stunned to see a bushy-tailed coyote standing along the hillside only a few yards away from me. He just stood there, staring at me as I stared back at him with bewilderment. For a few seconds, I was paralyzed from the shock of being so close to this wild wolf-like creature. But then I regained my composure and instead of fleeing this potentially dangerous scene, I realized what an amazing photo opportunity I had.

With my camera still out, I lifted it up and snapped a few shots of the coyote. He continued to stand a few yards away, almost as if he were posing for me. There was enough sunlight shining through the trees so that my flash didn’t go off. I’m very thankful for this because the flash probably would’ve startled the coyote, resulting in him either retreating from his pose or moving in on me.

After taking about a dozen spectacular pictures, I reached in my pack for my camera case. While placing my camera back in its pouch, the coyote lost interest in me and continued his trek along the hillside. I watched him for a few more moments before I turned around and continued my way up the mountain. I took a several steps and then looked over my shoulder to see if my bushy tailed subject was still visible. He had vanished from sight, but I thought to myself how lucky I was to have captured such a rare moment on film…or rather on my memory card. And you can take a wild guess as to what image will be appearing on my digital Christmas photo cards this holiday season.

Wow! Without even trying, this year I’ve got one of the most excellent family photos for my photo Christmas cards! It started with a Grandparent’s Day gift: tickets for the whole family to go together to the circus – grandparents, parents and children. Getting there included the usual merry-go-round of logistics planning, and teasing about one another’s directional foibles and timing mishaps. We arrived in a little swarm of laughter, with every one of us feeling like a young child on holiday. We started enthusiastically taking pictures of each other: sitting in a row, biting into big puffs of pink cotton candy, digging fists into the popcorn cartons.

Best of all, while we were taking pictures one of my enterprising children enticed a clown to pose with our entire group, while snagging a passerby to take digital photos. The resulting family photos are a treasure of frozen merriment! As soon as I saw the digital photos, I knew we just had to send that particular photo far and near as this year’s photo Christmas cards.  I’m often writing notes in my holiday cards, to distant relatives and old friends, to update them on the growth and well-being of my children and grandchildren.  This year, I’ll let my family photo Christmas cards say it all for me!

Anyone out there have kids who make it a challenge when taking pictures?  Am I alone in this?  You know the daunting task of taking a young child to have digital photos shot professionally at one of those photo studios that specialize in such things?

Each year, I bring my son to have digital photos taken to ensure that I have great photos of him at every age.  Sometimes I also brave the trip to a photo studio to take digital photos for the photo Christmas cards I send out at the end of the year.  If I were any kind of photographer, I’d skip the whole process and just take the digital photos myself, but unfortunately a photographer I’m not.  Some people may think it’s exciting to go get portrait photos done…memories to last a lifetime, right?  Well, if you have a child over the age of six this may be the case, but for me, it’s not.

Somehow keeping them clean, stopping the crying, teaching patience while we wait on line (didn’t I make an appointment???), getting them to look at the camera (would it be too much to hope for a smile?), and praying they don’t punch the photographer while having their photos taken is not so exciting!

Then when it all settles down, I think to myself “Why would anyone choose to do this?  I don’t need to have portrait photos done, do I?”  Then I realize of course I do, and that the daunting task is worth every second once the digital photos arrive.  It’s true what they say, memories do last a lifetime and when the kids are little, it’s a memory you’ll want to keep forever.

So, maybe I should consider some photography classes for myself.  Make my own greeting cards, create beautiful portraits and photo greeting cards for friends…why not show off my portraits?  Who knows, with a little practice I might be the next Annie Leibovitz!