Favorite Photo 2015

I have become {much} more obsessed with photos since Jacoby has been born, so to pick a favorite photo for the whole year of 2015 is hard. When I came across Social Print Studio, the opportunity to find a favorite photo for 2015 was brought up and I thought "yes".  Then when I had to look through all my photos...it became a daunting task :)

I mean...let's not talk about how many photos I honestly have on my phone.  

A lot of times I just snap snap snap while Jacoby is doing something, because that's the best way to actually get the shot I want.

This picture was no different.  He is a toddler on the move, and so to catch a non-blurry photo is the challenge.  I always try to take different angles, because sometimes it surprises me how much better the light might be just by moving a little.  We have a nice camera that I use sometimes, but 99% of the time I snap away with my iPhone.  

Nothing fancy, but always handy. 

With this photo, I was playing peek-a-boo with Jacoby through this tunnel at the park and thought the lighting was awesome.  I snapped a few and then that afternoon while he was napping, I went through my pictures and found the perfect one.  I added a little instagram filter and BOOM.  My favorite photo :) I chose this picture because I am far from creative, but felt this was my most creative and different photo.  I have LOTS of cute pictures of Jacoby (and Nate!), but I thought this picture was more than just a cute face!

I've become a little more enlightened to some filters and photo apps that can definitely help with photos.  Sometimes I find myself snapping away for a photo and I can just picture the perfect shot in my head, but the lighting is off.  I find that the lighting in my house is always dark. always.  That makes it hard to get a great picture.  

I post almost all of my favorite photos to instagram, so I got really use to their filters, but recently have been looking for something a little "more". 

I've used the following free apps:

VSCO

Diptic

PicStitch

I'm not one to splurge on apps, like ever. Ever.  But I decided to to try one that I felt was relatively cheap and I had heard lots of good things about. After all, this was so that we could have great pictures of Jacoby, so it's not really me spending money just for me...right? ;) Justified. 

I might just start spending a little money on apps, because PicTapGo is definitely my favorite app :) It's been worth the little bit of money and is the one app that I use for almost every single picture I post.  I love that you can "build" the filters, adding them on top of each other for different looks and I love the look of most of their filters.  My favorite part of the app though, is that it has
a "history" tab.  It saves your most recent filters or filter combinations, so when you are filtering the next photo, you can use the same one to create a unified look across your pictures.  I use this all the time, particularly recently with my week-by-week maternity photos.  Every now and then I can't get it to look quite right (meaning I feel like my eyes look dark or my hair color looks funny...girl problems, right?), but for the most part this is how I help my photos look their best. 

 How often do you take the time to go through all the pictures you took in a year? It's really fun to look back and it's something I generally do with my "Year Recap", but deciding on one official picture is still a tough job. If you get a second, check out Social Print Studio's website. They do all types of work with photos, including magnet photos, photo books, and my favorite: metal prints. 

We have the best resources on hand for photos and I can't wait to see how it's only going to get better.  I'm thankful that I can snap as many pictures of Jacoby as I want, and videos too.  I hope you all are taking as many as I do-- I'm confident it'll be something I won't regret {even if some day Jacoby does! :) }

xox,

Naomi