The holidays are upon us! Now is the time to plan you image-making ventures to capture the spirit of the special moments you’ll be sharing.

Before anything, make sure you have and keep on hand:

• Enough batteries for your camera and flash unit. If your camera uses a rechargeable battery, be sure to have a charged spare handy.

• An extra media card or two. You don’t want to be happily snapping away and run out of space on your media card–and then realize you can’t delete older pictures on there because you hadn’t downloaded them yet to your computer! Now is actually a good time to get those photos downloaded to clear the media cards that you do have.

Plan the stories you’re going to tell, and then outline the pictures you’ll take.

A few photo ideas to get started with:

Do you have a deciduous tree that is now sporting fall colors? Photograph it now before it loses all its leaves, and then photograph it when it’s winter bare.

Many...

A picture is worth a thousand words-a well-worn cliché but so true as pictures have the power to speak volumes into the lives, esteem, and person of those who view them.

Think of our media-saturated culture and the pictures resonating from it–pictures in the form of advertising, that relay messages of how to think, look, act, what to eat, what’s hot and what’s not. etc. Whether the images are still (magazine, billboard ads) or moving (video, television ads), our lives are bombarded with pictures, that for many rule their lives and decisions. The good news is that pictures, in the form of photographs, are useful in helping children build self-esteem and self-confidence and strengthen their sense of connectedness in the family.

Photographs of a child, which portray caring, nurturing, love, and success, are perfect to display in the child’s bedroom, the family room, and even on the refrigerator.

These types of images are subconscious boosters to...