Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

I needed to remind myself again this month that this isn't the only place I'm printing photographs - but I just had so many favourites!  I could have done 2 more spreads of favourites but, in the spirit of this project and not making it bigger than it needs to be, I stuck with two. The one of them painting together and the three of them hunting for the perfect pumpkin just melt my heart.

Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

Happy Halloween!

Since October has five Mondays, this week is a bonus week. If you've missed a week or two, now is a great time to catch up. Even if you haven't been playing along so far, this week is for everyone.

Assignment 18: Turn off your flash.

Turning off your flash isn't going to be possible at all times, but I encourage you to pull out your camera manual, dust it off, and figure out how.

Flash can be a great thing - it gives you light when the camera thinks there's not enough. The only problem with that? It floods a whole bunch of light straight on to your subject and takes away the shadows. And the shadows? They're what make a photograph pretty.


These two photos were taken in the same spot, in the same light, with my point and shoot camera on the automatic setting, one minute apart. The only difference is that the flash was turned on for the photograph on the left and turned off for the photograph on the right.

Without getting into a whole lot of theory, when you turn off your flash one thing your camera will do is lower your shutter speed. When your shutter speed is low, any motion from you or your subject is going to make your photograph a bit blurry. My dad is great at taking a photograph with a low shutter speed, he's really steady. Me? Not so much. To combat shaky hands when you're snapping the shutter, brace your body against a wall or rest your camera on a solid surface. That will prevent some of the natural shake that happens when you press the shutter release.

You can also see the non-flash photograph is much more evenly lit. Your flash puts lots of light onto the area immediately in front of the camera but that light falls off very quickly making your subject look nicely exposed but the background look very dark.


She has a cuter look on her face in the photo on the left but again, you can see what a difference turning off the flash makes to the overall "prettiness" of the photograph.

If it's really dark you're probably not going to have the option to turn off your flash but I encourage you to give it a try in some lower light situations in the next week.

On a side note, if you are interested in the theory and understanding how your camera (and ultimately you) use ISO, aperture and shutter speed to determine the exposure, Understanding Exposure is a great book to get you started. Or feel free to comment below or send me and email and I can put together an FAQ post with the answers to some of your questions.

Have a fun and safe night trick-or-treating!

A couple weekends ago we made the trip out to Langley for our annual pumpkin patch excursion. We go to Aldor Acres every year and this year was no exception.


Both the kids love seeing the animals but in such different ways. Angelo enjoys them from afar, appreciating their beauty and pointing out every little thing they do. Gracie, on the other hand, is always ready to stick out her hand and jump right in and play with them.

When we were in the barns playing with the pigs they were running all around her feet and she was loving every minute of it until the piglets started munching on her boots. I love her "isn't anyone going to do anything about this?" look while we laughed and I snapped a few photos, mean mama.


For the kids and I, finding pumpkins is serious business. Jim would be content picking the first pumpkins we come across after hopping off the tractor. But not the kids and I. We need to examine each pumpkin, discuss it's merits and make sure we have a good mix of round pumpkins and taller skinny ones. Actually, that last one may be all me.

And on this trip we needed four pumpkins, one for each of us, regardless of the fact that there may be a number of other smaller pumpkins at home from preschool fieldtrips and Thanksgiving dinner decorations.


Aldor Acres is a bit of a drive but there are so many things I love about this pumpkin patch. The way they have extra activities for the kids while never losing sight of the fact that they are a working farm. That you take a hay ride out to pick your pumpkin from the real field it was grown in - mud, vines, worms and all. The fact that they are so friendly, encouraging the kids to "drive" the tractor in the field once we've chosen our pumpkins. And the drive out to the farm once you get off the freeway is absolutely stunning.

Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

As I mentioned last week, we changed things around a bit in order to make sure we had room for Halloween photographs. I know you're thinking Halloween is still a week away but hear me out on this one.

Assignment 17: Photograph your children in their Halloween costumes.

I've said before that for this album, I'm not a big fan of "setting up" the photographs since it's supposed to be a candid look at our year. The big exception to that is holiday photographs. For a few reasons....

I really don't want my littles to go through every holiday without seeing my face because the camera is always blocking it. I want to really enjoy the fun days with them. I'll still be taking photos on Halloween night, I'll just be able to fully be present and enjoying it without worrying I'll remember what costumes they wore in 2011 (and that I have a great photograph of them in their costumes).

If you're north of the 49th parallel, your kids are likely heading out to trick-or-treat when it's already dark outside. Not the best time for photographs. Taking a costume photo in advance means you get to pick the setting and light - and weather! Plus they get the added fun of playing dress-up in costumes that might otherwise be saved for the big day.

And finally, if your kids are anything like mine, the prospect of all that candy means they're not going to want to stand still for any length of time to have their picture taken. So if you have to take 50 shots on a Thursday morning in order to get one where he's not bossing her around and she's not trying to pull her antennae off her head, no biggie.

I am blessed to be friends with some pretty amazing photographers. A few weeks ago, 19 of us, including our fearless mentor, joined together to each photograph a month of mornings. One photo from each of us, taken before 10AM, every day for the month of October.


I've never done very well with daily photo projects. I'm notorious for starting and then petering out after day 3. Not this time. I'm loving the challenge of finding a new way to photograph the littles before 10AM each day, especially since we don't get much real light until after 9AM.

You can view all the photos from my Month of Mornings project here and follow along until the end of the month. 

Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

Ordinarily in the third week, we'd be photographing something seasonal but since I'm saving that for Halloween, this week I'm photographing more of the details of our life.

Assignment 16: Photograph your perfect little angel when they're less than angelic.

What's that? Your child is always happy and smiling? Mine too, or so you'd think when you flip through our photos. If you're anything like me, you don't have any photographs of when they're in the midst of a temper tantrum or having a crying spell. Which is a shame because both my kids have crying faces that are so unique to them, yet it's the same crying face each time.

The funny thing is, in the five days leading up to today, I swear Angelo didn't cry once. Not that he didn't have his moments - he was in time out more than once for talking back - just no big cries or tantrums. I'm sure the streak won't last into this week so I'll add his photo in when I'm working on my October page.

Send me an email or comment below if you have your crying faces posted online. If nothing else it will make me feel better knowing mine aren't the only ones that have their days!

There's nothing better than an energetic, fun-loving family - beautiful on the inside and out.

I've had a few requests for another set of mini-sessions for those who missed out the first time around. If you're interested and want more info, please email me at jenn@jenndispirito.com.

And because no post is complete without a photo... this is me being a mean mama and rushing him through his pancakes because the fog outside was too cool not to photograph in.