To start putting your photo blanket, you need to determine which side of the fabric to use for the outside of your throw. When I made the blanket, it had a small white edge on the wrong side, where the fabric was bordered. So you can lay the print fabric face down on a flat surface. The wrong side of the fabric will be face up. You can also lay your solid fabric wrong side down, putting the wrong sides of the fabric together, so that the right side out will be face upward. You can put the solid fleece on the top of the quilt as this is much easier to see what you are doing.

Thus, you need to match the edges very carefully. Otherwise, it might look bad from both the sides. If they are not properly matched, you need to trim a side or adjust it for the perfect match. With the help of long straight pins you can match the ends and side together properly. Although, you can add extra pins that make your photo blankets straight and they keep the fabric intact while you work.

Apart from that, you can use a good pair of scissors. One is required for the smooth cutting. The first cut you will make is at your corner. So you can remove a square at the corners, about two inches by two inches deep. You can remove the excessive fabric which is not required. You can make two inches cuts down the side of the fabric. You can start in one corner and cut with a perfect way around the quilt. The whole procedure is depending on the experience that you have earned in your previous days. Based on your experiences and expertise, you may decide to measure your fabric before making your cuts. In this case, you can use a fabric pencil to pre-mark your borders. It is more helpful.

Nevertheless, to start the stitch procedure, you can take the solid color strip of materials and wrap it around the print of material. Make sure always use the solid strip to wrap around the other to keep your stitch looking consistent and neat. Before you starting the stitches, there are a couple of challenges that you have to be aware of in order to make the perfect stitches. Sometimes, it can be difficult to get the needle to come out on the inside part of the loop. The best way to make this process easier is to make a larger loop than you would like. You can make a straight line for the bottom part of the stitch and mark the portion where you will start and finish every stitch.

Furthermore, now that you have completed your fleece blanket, you may want to wrap it and give it personalized gift item. However, I personally prefer to put the photo blankets in a gift bag rather than a gift box. The bag maintains their shape properly. At the same time the recipient would happy to receive this type of gift item on special occasions.

Practice

Though this may seem somewhat obvious, many people only practice their photography skills during special moments. The more you become comfortable using your camera, the easier it will be for you to take excellent pictures for special occasions. Even when you do not have the camera in your hands, you can still practice with your eyes, noting which things will make good pictures.

Lighting Matters

Before you begin a photo session, look to see where your primary light sources are located. Are there awkward shadows being cast? Can you use them to create special effects? If there is shadowing that you would like to minimize on an up close photo, use the flash on your camera. It will help to light the dark areas. You also want to be certain that the light source is not directly behind you. Otherwise, you may inadvertently end up casting your own shadow into the photo.

Pay Attention

If you are working with human subjects, interact with them. Make eye contact and give them feedback on what you would like them to do. If you want your subjects to smile, have a well rounded stockpile of jokes and one-liners that you can use to release a natural smile when you are ready. If your subject is uncomfortable, it will show in the photos. Ask what you can do to help them if this occurs.

Look At Everything in the Frame

While you want your main subject to be at the center of your photograph, it is critical that you pay attention to the other elements surrounding them. Is there garbage or something else unsightly in the background of an anniversary picture? The message you wish for the picture to convey will make a difference in how these background elements will come across. For example, if you are showing the plight of the homeless, garbage in the background may be a desired addition to the picture.

Invest Minimally

Good photographs are not necessarily the result of having lots of expensive equipment. In fact, if you do not know how to use it properly, that investment is a waste. Start with a minimal amount of equipment and learn everything that you can about it. Read up on your camera, figuring out the different features it may have. See how others have made the most of theirs. Eventually, you can add more tools to help you along the way. By waiting, you ensure that each investment you make will benefit your photography skills in some way. Your camera should have a manual with it. Begin by reading it. Then, continue to expand your knowledge base. Watch and learn from others.

Learning how to take good photos is not something that simply happens to people. It takes plenty of practice and learning in order to become good. Learn everything you can about your camera so that you can be more relaxed. This will transfer to your subjects as well. Practice with different types of lighting and angles. Though you may not like every picture that you take, you can learn from all of them, even if it is what not to do in the future. Your skills are certain to improve if you put into practice the tips that you have found here.

Months before leaving

Planning for a photography trip starts at this time. As soon as the trip is confirmed, try to look for the highlights of the places you will be visiting. I would do a little bit of research about where to take photos from and what to take photos of. For example, if you are coming to Indonesia in the middle of August, you may encounter independence day events there.

Early bird bookings for hotels and flights will cost you less. Book a hotel which gives you easy access to your photography spots. I would write down a list of locations where I will be taking pictures from, and then decide the best location of my hotel.

Weeks before the day

I would spend more time on planning what photos I want to capture at this stage of planning my photography trip. For instance, if I were to travel to Indonesia in the middle of August, I would be taking photos of the independence day ceremony in the morning, fun events in the afternoon. Then in the evening I would take photos of the local sunset.

By properly planning your photography trips, you will be able to dig deeper for more thoughts and ideas. Look at pictures available on the internet and get inspired by them. But not only from the internet, you can also search local photographs from libraries, image directories, photo books, local websites, and tourism guidebooks.

This is a process which may take some time because you never know when inspirations hit.

At this point of the photography trip planning, I would also check my equipment. I would check if any of my gear is not working well and have them repaired right away if necessary. Servicing them now is the best because they must be ready by the time you depart.

Few days before the trip

Keep in mind that some places don’t provide internet access. Therefore it is much better if you write down, or print, every note you would need, such as local shops, tourist office, and local sunrise and sunset time. Weather forecast is also an important information to be noted.

It would be better if you start making a list of what to bring for the photography trip. Sometimes you might forget some items if you think of them 1-2 days before the trip.

1 day before the trip

I would pack the camera and its equipment first. The last thing you want to discover is missing your spare battery or camera lenses at home. Have a last check on the weather forecast. Print all documents you will need for the photography trip. Make sure you have the memory card(s) ready.

D-day

Check and recheck for the last time before you leave. It doesn’t hurt you to have an extra checking, rather than regretting that you left an important piece of gear at home. Camera lenses, formatted memory cards, spare battery, and your travel documents should be rechecked.

Insurance, cash money, taxi reservation, flight ticket, and passport are usually the most important travel documents which you should not forget to bring. Other than that you are set and ready to go.

Choose a photo editor

To get started, you would need to choose and open a photo editor. Remember, there are plenty of these out there, so just pick the best one amongst them all and install it on to your computer. Once installed, open it, and import the photo that you wish to work on.

Access the photo

The photo that you have just imported will be available in a tab named ‘layers’. Now, click on the tab to open it so that you would be able to make necessary edits over the photo.

Consider filters

The next step involves you accessing the tab named ‘filter’. There would be a number of sub-menus within this tab, all of which would provide you with details on the different filters that you can use. Herein, it would be necessary for you to decide how many filters you wish to use over your photos. Once done, just select the right one from the sub-menu.

Blur the image

Now, with all that out of the way, you now need to access the tab name ‘blur’. This particular tab is rather helpful in terms of retouching images. Through it, you have the potential to come up with new shades, haze or soften the shading effect over your photos, and define lines etc. Basically, you would need to play around a bit here to be able to achieve the cool photo effects that you are interested in.

The final step

Now, the final step involves you accessing the ‘distort’ tab. Using the sub-menus given in this tab, it would be possible for you to render, stretch, or even squeeze it. This part is truly the most fun-filled one, and once you are done with, your desired fun photo effects will be in place!

• Carry only the essentials you will need. Loading your camera bag with every bit of equipment you own. Travel as light as possible if you are going to be outdoors photographing all day long. Traveling light will also help you save your energy. When hiking, climbing or crossing snow filled hills; a warm thermos and energy producing food will serve you much more than a extra camera equipment will.
• Dress for Success – Proper clothing is essential. You need to be warm and comfortable when out in the weather shooting winter photographs. Winter weather can be brutal, so if you are planning a photography trip, always be prepared.
• Keep an eye out for details: Things like Snow, icicles, ice covered objects and frost accentuate texture and atmosphere in your subjects. An early snowy or frosty morning is a great time for macro or close-up photography. These frosty mornings can also reveal patterns in landscapes. Be sure to watch your camera placement carefully: If you are photographing in early morning experiment with photographing it at different angles to the sun – this can give your images heavy shadows adding extra mood to your landscape photographs, also pay attention to the foreground in your photos which will add depth to your image.
• Pay Careful attention to your Exposure: Snow and ice can fool your cameras exposure meter and are more difficult to expose properly than normal scenes. Take light readings from snow will often read the scene as an underexposed image. Most camera or hand held meters will read the snow as a greytone so it is a good idea to bracket your exposures. When bracketing exposures add 1 – 2 stops of light to compensate for your light meter reading. Using an 18% grey card should also give you a more accurate light reading.

So lets first discuss why it is so difficult to photograph the moon. The two main issues are: (1) The brightness of the moon, and (2) the size of the moon.

Almost everyone has experienced a “moon-lit night”. This is when a full moon, or nearly full moon, lights up a dark night. You see everything around you fairly well, which is evidence that the small amount of sunlight that the moon reflects is actually quite bright.

Why is this a problem for moon photography? When the moon is so bright and everything itself is much darker, it is impossible to make a photo where both the moon and the subject are clearly visible. Either the moon is very bright and washed out (and everything else is properly exposed), or the moon’s details are well-defined, but everything else is black or very dark. We’ll get to possible solutions in a little bit.

The other problem with moon photography is that it is actually quite small in the sky. Using a normal lens will cause the moon to appear very small in the resulting photo. This will not usually create a compelling image, even if the frame is properly exposed. Of course you can use a zoom lens and take a photo of the moon, but that is usually pretty boring.

So what is a photographer to do? My suggestions are as follows:

• Plan on photographing a full moon at or near moonrise or moonset, when the moon is very near the horizon
• Look for interesting subjects that are large (e.g. building or tree size), in a large flat region, and which are visible from a distance of a few hundred feet to a few hundred yards.
• Research the direction (aka the azimuth) where the moon will rise or set in a given month, and select a subject where the moon will be easily be visible and adjacent to the subject from a distance

OK, you may not be able to easily visualize these ideas, but let me explain what I’m trying to accomplish here. I want you to photograph the full moon near the horizon, from a distance, and with an interesting subject in the frame. The reason I want to photograph the full moon near the horizon is because the light it is emitting nearly matches the ambient light of the rest of the world at that time. That’s because the sun would be directly behind you and it would be illuminating both the moon and your subject equally.

This concept of even lighting only works with the full moon, because during other phases of the moon the moon is either too high in the sky or below the horizon when the sun is behind you.

Now simply photographing the moon near the horizon does not alone make for an interesting image. So now think about making the moon LARGE in the frame, and in combination with an interesting subject. This is the hard part. You obviously will be using a zoom lens for this, so you will be shooting BOTH the moon and the subject from a distance. They need to be very near each other in the frame. This is where a lot of planning is needed. You need a large, unobstructed, flat area for this (i.e. no hills, trees, buildings, etc) so that the rising or setting moon is visible.