Low Light Photography: camera setting suggestions

Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. I like dressing up and seeing how others dress up too. It is important to me to document my Halloween happenings. However, Halloween means less daylight. As our days get shorter you will find yourself in low light situations that can be problematic for your camera. I’ve learned a lot about low light shooting via trial by error and necessity. So here are just a few suggestions on how to avoid the dark and/or blurry photos that are so common to low light photography.

1. Night Mode: If you have a night setting on your camera, USE IT. Most cameras - point and shoot and DSLR - are armed with a night photography setting. This setting can be used in low light settings in doors and out. It is your best weapon against photos that are too dark. Be aware that this setting can lengthen the amount of time your shutter will stay open. Steady your camera by tucking your elbows into your body or use someone's shoulder (or head) if you don’t have a tripod.
2. Flashed Out: When your flash goes off do you get the look that I like to call “flashed out”? Some on-board camera flashes are too powerful and wash out the color in your photo. Even use of an external flash can cause a “flashed out” effect. A diffuser is the best way to avoid this issue. I use a Gary Fong Lightsphere with my external flash and it works very well. Sometimes I don’t have my external flash and my on board is notorious for flashing things out. A simple inexpensive solution for this problem is a tissue or a piece of plain printer paper. Simply hold the paper about an inch away from the flash while taking your photo.

Save Your Story: Flaws

Today’s prompt comes from a quote by the author Augesten Burroghs book: Magical Thinking: True Stories. I read this quote for the first time about six months ago and it has been on my mind ever since. It really made me think and I thought it would be a good way to start the Save Your Story series. I believe that this is a very true statement. I know I make a lot of mistakes, no body is perfect. I just hope that by recognizing my flaws I might be able to be better about those things. I decided to write to my husband with this prompt and tell him I am trying to better in the areas that I find lacking. I put the Journaling into a layout with a photo of me.

Credits: Papers and Elements - Every Day of the Year by Sugarplum Paperie; Fonts- Century Gothic, A Little Pot, and Downcome (T1)
Journaling reads: I know I am not perfect. In fact I know I am far from it. I could be better about the house work, ie laundry, dishes, and cleaning? I want to want to do them, it is just hard sometimes.  Playing around on the computer is just so much more fun. I know over-react to a lot of things like losing my keys, hairbrush, and phone, but I am trying to be better. I have gotten a lot better about actually saying words when something is wrong and I need you to stop, I used to just blubber, mumble, and make noise. I am really sorry for the glasses of water all over the house, especially our room. I don’t have any excuse for that one and the dishes around the house too. I know I bug you to do things a lot; I just need help when I am stressed. This is when I tend to freak out and over-react, when I am stressed. I will try my best not to be stressed, but I can’t control my external stressors. Please understand. I am trying. But No Body’s Perfect.


What are your flaws? What are your strengths? Is there something you are working on being better at?
If you feel comfortable please share. If not please lets us know you participated. Only share what you are comfortable with sharing. After all tomorrow today will be the past, so start saving your story today.

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About this series:
Save Your Story is a journaling prompt series that I hope to have on this blog at least once a month. The prompts will be have lots of different sources. Sometimes it will come from quotes, some from the images, some will be seasonal, and others will be for the everyday. This series is meant help you document your life right now and to remember your past. Most importantly, I want you to document your emotions. Consider how the prompt makes you feel. Use your senses to convey your feelings in this prompt. Describe what you heard, smelled, tasted, or touched. Show what saw and add the journaling to a blog post or scrapbook layout. If you post your prompt response somewhere, please link it up in the comments. Or feel free to write it right in the comments.

OhLife: user how to

OhLife is an amazing journal service. I want to preface this post by letting you know that OhLife is completely free. It is really easy to use. You just tell it how often you want to write. Then on the days you told it to OhLife will send you an email and you simply respond.

So here’s how you get started. Simply go to the OhLife home page. Just Click Here.

Next enter your email address and “Get Started.” Create a password as prompted then you are ready to go. OhLife will send you a confirmation email. You can immediately start making entries by responding to that email.

Once you are logged in you can go to the settings, you can find the link in the top right corner of the page. In the settings you can change your time zone and choose to have a past entry included or not. I personally love having a past entry included. It takes me back and sometimes reminds me of something that I never finished writing about. (Like a 6 month car trouble saga.) In the settings you can also go to and change your email frequency settings. You can find the link to them in the right sidebar. You can choose daily or under the weekly setting you can choose specific days of the week. You will also notice the “never” option. That simply means you can choose to stop receiving emails. Your existing entries won’t be deleted and you can still make entries by logging in to the OhLife website.

OhLife allows you to attach up to one photo to each of your entries via an email attachment. When you view your entries on the OhLife website your photo will be at the top of your entry.

Once you have made a few entries you can view them after logging into the OhLife website. Your most recent entry will be shown after you log in. If you click the “past” link in the upper right hand corner you can view your past entries by month. You can also find “export” and “write” functions on the right side. The “write” button will allow you to make a journal entry. The export button will allow you to download and save a text version of your journal so far. Unfortunately, this download is only a basic text file and will not include any photos. Hopefully this changes soo and photos will be included, but there is no news on that front so far.

I am a huge fan of OhLife. It is a really easy way to start documenting your life. I encourage you to get started on documenting your life, it really isn’t that hard. After all, tomorrow today will be the past, so start saving your story today.

The Reasons

I created this blog to help people document the stories of their lives. You may not know it now, but you are probably already doing something to save the stories of you and your families.Some of it will be original content and some will be directing you to classes, forums, challenges, and inspiration on other websites. If you have a request just let me know. If you like something you see I would love to know.

I really believe in the importance of documenting our stories. I would love to have you join me on the extraordinary adventure. After all, tomorrow today will be the past, so start saving your story today.