Atlanta Baby & Child Photographer Blog | Angela Calderon

This morning I traveled to Altadena to photograph a gorgeous set of twins. I am not joking when I say that I would pay an insane amount of money to have hair like theirs. Their ringlet curls were to die for!

Their Mom & Dad were so awesome too, I really enjoyed myself and the time just flew by. I think four is now my favorite age, they were so easy and willing to be in front of the camera. One of my favorite things about them was their bond. When it was time for them to switch places or for me to photograph the other one, they would hug each other. It really tugged at my heart strings, honestly it was amazing to watch them together. I loved how their little faces were smiling at me through the window when I arrived, and how their Dad called them Ladies when he was trying to get their attention. I loved how their Mom sat and let them “fix” her hair while she was sitting on the sidewalk. Words cannot express how wonderful this family was.

Ok, enough of my rambling! Here are a few of the photos from today! Oh and I apologize in advance if I posted individual shots of the same twin, I *think* I mixed it up, but boy I was bad at telling them apart!

I think we invented a new sport – Synchronized Boot Jumping! I wonder if we could get that in to the next Olympics?

I can so relate to this… 

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Hey you!  I see you sitting there at your computer.  I can also see that you have a hard drive full of snapshots of your sweet children.  I bet you also haven’t had any of them printed out, so they are just sitting there on your computer and no one can see them.  Print them out!  Put them in a album or a scrapbook. 

Ok the real point of my post today is that I want to urge you to back up your photos.  I have several different back up methods for my personal photos and for all of my client files to be sure that if my computers ever crashed that I would be well protected and not lose anything.  I have multiple external hard drives, I burn cds and dvds so I’m well covered.

The most IMPORTANT thing that I do is that I back up all of my files offsite.  I use a service called mozy.com and every night when I’m done using my computer Mozy goes in and backs up everything to their servers.  Why in the world would I want to do this if I have externals and dvds?  Well in case of theft, fire, or if I lost them, they are always waiting for me right there on Mozy.  This must be expensive right? Nope nope it’s not, for home users like you it’s only $5 a month for UNLIMITED backup (what? unlimited, yes unlimited!)  It doesn’t just back up image files, you can backup everything on your computer.

Please please back up your files, I’ve had way too many friends experience computer crashes and they have lost all of their photos of their children’s birthdays, special moments, activities, etc.

With most of the back up services the initial backup will take about 1 day less than forever, because if you are like me you have a gazillion files sitting there.  After that it only takes a little time each night and you can schedule it for a time when you are not using the computer.

Another thing I do is backup JPEG images to flickr.com.  For $25 a year (which is insanely cheap) you can get a flickr pro account with unlimited storage and upload all of your images in hi-res format to flickr.  You can set them to private so no one else but you can see them, you can even use their printing service to kill two birds with one stone.  You can invite family and friends to view photos as well on a flickr guest pass.

Now you don’t have to be as insane as I am and have your data backed up all over the place like I do, but please please back it up to something offsite and away from your home.  If your computer ever crashes, which most of them eventually do, you will thank me!  I have a few friends who use carbonite.com to back up, I’ve never tried it but I hear it’s a great program as well!  Anything is better than not backing up!

Ok so this post isn’t so boring, I’ll throw in a couple of totally unrelated images, but at least you have something to look at to go along with all of my bossy requests for you to back up your computers!   Both shots are San Pedro, CA at night…

This morning I traveled to Hollywood to the offices of Delight.com and Delightfulblogs.com for a photoshoot with one of their founders, Lynda.  What an amazing woman she is and let me tell you, I think we are going to have to go out to lunch one day just so we can talk some more.  She loves to talk about blogs, shopping, music and the internet, my kind of person!  If you have never been to Delight.com you are missing out!  I’m borrowing the description from their site because they say it so much better than I could ever possibly describe:

“Delight.com is an every day shopping adventure dedicated to putting the joy back in shopping. We cut through the retail clutter and bring a highly edited and ever-changing showcase of products that are insanely useful, a fantastic value, or just downright fabulous. Log on at lunch (noon central) and each day you’ll find one Delightful product featured with a Delightful gift for you…some days it’s a discounted price…other times free shipping…a free gift…you just never know.”

I had so much fun, Lynda was an absolute sweetheart and was so beautiful!  Here are a couple of her promo shots.  She told me about all of the exciting things coming up in the near future for her company and wow, look out world because here they come.

Did you know that today is Talk Like A Pirate Day?  What?  You’ve never heard of it?  Well check this out: http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

I want to share a few of my favorite pirate shots, first one up is my sweet boy who turns 6 today.  He was born 9/19/01, it was such a scary time after 9/11 but this little miracle came in to our lives and changed us forever.  He had a rough start and spent the first couple of weeks in the NICU.  I had to leave the hospital without him and I thought my heart would break in to a million pieces.  The day I finally was able to bring him home was one of the best days of my life.  He’s now a happy, feisty, funny, sweet, loving and spirited six year old.  I love you sweet baby boy.  Happy Birthday!