Preserve Your Family Memories…before it’s too late!

- Joel Heffner
Family photo in mid-1930s in Poland. After WW II only two survived…my father (9) and my uncle (11).

Taking family photos is great, preserving family memories is even more important! Saving your family memories is easy, fast, and free. Here are the suggested steps:

  1. Find the most important photos in your closets, drawers, and albums.
  2. Take out your smartphone, yes, your smartphone.
  3. Photograph the old photos.
  4. Here’s the most important part…make prints of the photos and give them to your family members. You might also want to create small albums. Make sure you record the NAMES of each person. Very important. The photo above has each person numbered. The problem is that the list of names has been long lost.

Do whatever is necessary to preserve your family memories…now.

[Incidentally, I offer a workshop on preserving family memories. For details, please contact me.]

Oldies but goodies…tips for photographing a Pug.

- Joel Heffner

I used this handout for a workshop I conducted a few years ago. I decided to use all Pug photos for the workshop. The people liked it, I hope you find it helpful. I once did a photo workshop using only one photo…it was the Polaroid photo in this handout. That one was taken at P.J.’s first dog show…about 30 years ago. He didn’t do very well that day, but eventually he became a champion. I miss him.

Pug Photo Tips that apply to all cameras and all subjects…

Preserve your garden…before it’s too late!

- Joel Heffner

Most of us are facing colder weather…soon. Those lovely flowers won’t be there much longer. Preserve your garden memories by taking photos now. Make prints and hang them up to admire them during the winter. They also serve as reminders of where you planted what. Go ahead…preserve your garden memories!

Garden Overview
Garden Overview — Summer, 2019

Slow Down … to move ahead.

- Joel Heffner

Looking at my iPhone Photos file I found this…

My iPhone Photos Stats

The number it doesn’t show is the number of prints I have made in the last month. Zero.

It dawned on me that shooting with the fastest camera I ever had, my iPhone, hasn’t produced many worthy (in my opinion) images. So…I decided to slow down and create a new talk called “Point-and-Shoot vs. Point-and-Meditate.”

Stay tuned for the details.

I admit it. I’m a square.

- Joel Heffner

Years ago, when I was a wedding photographer I used a Hasselblad. It took 120 or 220 film. As a wedding photographer (way back in the 1980s) we used flash for just about all of the photos indoors. If you used a rectangular format camera you would need to shift the flash every time you changed from vertical to horizontal. Very annoying. That’s what was great about the Hasselblad. It took square photos…no shifting needed.

Now, if you use an iPhone, square is an option. It’s the option I used most of the time. It allows you to “crop” in the camera (iPhone). It’s one of my favorite features. If you don’t already shoot in squares try it. Maybe you’ll become a square like me.

Little Missy is Back!

- Joel Heffner

One of our Pug’s was named Missy. After she died my wife found a flower called Little Missy. She’s been growing it ever since. This morning, for the first time in at least four years, Little Missy had a flower. I immediately took a picture. It’s amazing the detail you can get with an iPhone. Look at the center of the flower. Not many cameras could have done better. I think Missy would have been proud.

Little Missy … The Flower