Woman in Real Life

My daughter and I decided to have a get-together with a few of her friends on Valentine's Day. I highly recommend sharing Valentine's Day with a group of enthusiastic and spirited tween girls. They had so much fun hanging out, doing Valentine's Day crafts and nibbling on snacks.

Of course, I had to snap some shots of these cuties partying in true preteen fashion. As a Nikon Mom, I have had a blast sharing photos taken with my Nikon D3300 over the last several months. And, although this is my last official post as a Nikon Mom, all of the photos for this blog will continue to be taken with my Nikon D3300 and my Nikon D5100.


With their girl power-energy at an all-time high, it was difficult to get the girls to stay still long enough for pictures, but I managed to get a few fun shots to capture the joy that they felt spending time together on this day dedicated to love.


For our first Valentine's Day activity, we made cards for loved ones using a a fun stamp and card kit I bought at Michaels.




This sweet girl shared a more traditional sentiment on this card she made for her grandmother.



f/1.8, 1/160 sec., ISO-100

In addition to doing our planned activities, the girls conspired to create fun mystery word games.

In this photo, I wanted to capture the Valentine's Day décor in the background while primarily focusing on the happy girls in the front of the shot. I blurred out the background by focusing on the girls using my 35mm f/1.8G lens. Its large maximum aperture of f/1.8 allows me to give a nice out-of-focus effect to the background. If you are on a quest to better understand your camera, Nikon has great tips for using your digital SLR, including this handy article about understanding aperture. I have some more quick tips in my post about our 15th anniversary trip to New York too.


In addition to staging some photos, I also took some shots of the little details the girls are sure to enjoy remembering in future - like their very cute hair accessories.


And the snacks that they munched on for Valentine's Day.


My favourite shots are always the spontaneous ones, like this one above, in which the girls are having a laugh while enjoying their heart-shaped fruit on sticks. I think it captures their youthful spirit.

I like to play around with the composition of my photos. The rule of thirds suggests that you imagine a tic-tac-toe grid over the scene you are photographing. The points where the lines intersect are generally the best places to position your subject. Of course, rules are meant to be broken - the best thing to do is play around with your composition. For help, check out these 5 easy composition guidelines.

I had told my son he could invite a friend to the party, but he chose not to. Wonder why. Anyway, I called him any time there were snacks on offer.


My daughter enjoyed teaching her friends how to make tissue paper pom poms.

Of course, making cupcakes is a Valentine's Day necessity. We had lots of colourful toppings for the kids to choose from.



f/1.8, 1/200 sec., ISO-100

Although my official time as a Nikon Mom has come to an end, I'm looking forward to playing around some more with my Nikon digital cameras. I still have lots to learn in order to take advantage of all the unique characteristics of these fabulous cameras. When I was a teen, I used to love to set up my tripod and experiment with taking photos of sunsets, lakes and passing cars. Inspired by the enthusiasm of my Valentine's Day party girls, I am once again feeling that desire to explore the fun in photography.

What's your favourite subject to photograph?



Disclosure: I am part of the Mom Central Canada Nikon MOMents team and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.