Do you imagine your children or future generations sitting around reminiscing while perusing old hard drives full of photos that have been passed down to them? Will the hard drives even work with future technological advances? Or perhaps you imagine posterity to be pouring through thousands of photos on a cloud storage service we’ve entrusted with our most precious memories?

This is not what I imagine will be happening nor do I think it should be.

Our lives are very digital nowadays and most of us take photographs daily.  Aside from social media consumption or texting our friends and family, what is happening with those photos? As a professional photographer, I obviously back-up all my digital work on hard drives and the cloud, but when I think about my own family, tangible prints are what matters most.  I think it is part of our job as parents to help tell the visual story that we will pass on to our children and that story deserves to be printed for them.  

Almost all of us have a camera at the ready most of the time (hello smartphones), so this blog will offer some tips to go from simple snapshots to great shots that you’ll want to record, remember, and pass on to future generations. I’ll also intersperse some printing tips and display ideas because – PSA – print your photos! It matters. Time keeps on flying, but photographs are forever memories, so my hope is to help you take them with more intention by recording your most precious stories as beautifully, authentically, and creatively as possible!

So if you’ve made it this far down, hooray, and here goes!

Ash’s fab photo tip #1: FRONT LIGHTING 

Light is the essential ingredient for all photography. Over the next few posts I’ll be covering different types of lighting, and today we are focussing on front lighting.  This type of lighting is pretty easy to master, and I especially love it at sunrise or sunset. Front lighting refers to lighting your subject from the front. Obvious right?  This is when your subject is facing directly at your light source, and for me, that is usually the sun! Front lighting often leads to even lighting which can be very flattering.  I don’t use this lighting for traditional portraits because asking someone to look in the direction of bright sunlight will cause squinty eyes, but I absolutely love capturing candid and intimate moments in this type of light.  What I love most about front lighting is that it can make your subject look like it is bathed in warm light. I love imagining my photos, as future heirlooms, and having them immediately convey a feeling of warmth. Front lighting can do that really well! I’d love to hear your ideas for future photo tips! I hope you enjoyed this first edition of Ash’s fab photo tips. Happy clicking friends!