I'm a new father of a 6 weeks old daughter and the child is beautiful, in fact so beautiful that I've decided to upgrade my camera from my Point and Shoot to a DSLR in order to document everything about her
I picked a side and I'm a Nikonian, specifically a D90.

if we have any photographer in the house please send me some tips on books and sites podcasts and what not.

Fatherhood has also been inspirational for me as far as photography goes. In fact, it was 7 years ago today that I ran to the camera store to buy my first digital camera, then I came home and snapped this photo:



There are some things I wish I would have done different in the photo, but I didn't realize it would turn out so good -- I was just playing around with the b&w program setting, and I had some good light, so I turned off the flash. I wish I would have had my wife put a different shirt on, and I wish I would have held the camera more horizontal -- you can see that the edge of the window is angled. But for a quick snapshot, I think it turned out pretty good.

This past Christmas I upgraded my wife's digital to a Canon SD1100 ELPH, and just this past week JD passed along his Nikon D70 to me (because he upgraded). I have two other Nikon SLR's (old school FT2 & entry level N60), but just haven't used them lately because of the convenience of digital. Now I hope to use the DSLR for photographing the kids (and whatever else).

Some of the best books I've read with regards to photographing kids & family are by Nick Kelsh. He uses his own images to help convey his message, and I think they should be required reading for any parent with a camera who hopes to take quality photos, rather than just average snapshots. Here is Nick's website: Nick Kelsh Photograpy We have How to Photograph Your Baby and How to Photograph Your Life, and this reminds me that I need to reread them...

Enjoy the new camera!

P.S.- I moved this topic to General Discussion because it seemed a better fit over here.

The first thing I noticed was that your wife was in a tshirt, but I LOVE that. The baby is so new and little, it's not like she had time to change into something nicer. When babies are that small, I'm sure it takes everything out of you to change your shirt period.
Great picture, Jethro.

Oh, and congrats DebtFree.

Thanks peachy. Here they are 7 years later (taken with the D70):



DebtFree- If you have access to a photo hosting site (photobucket, etc), please feel free to post a few of your favorites here. In fact, I was just thinking it might be nice to have a thread for other amateur photographers to post some of their favorite shots.

Congrats on the D90, it's a great camera.

You've got a long and enjoyable road ahead of you with regards to learning how to become a better photographer. One of the most important elements to taking better pictures is learning how to best use your flash. And two sites that are great for that are Planet Neil and Strobist:

http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/flas ... echniques/

http://strobist.blogspot.com/

Other than that, just search around for some basic photography composition rules and techniques, like the rule of thirds, when to use a polarizer, how to best use Dutch Tilt, and all sorts of things.

Have fun!

Thank you all for the tips and congrats
I'm enjoying this camera and the learning it is fun, I'm reading a lot about photography on the web. I need to drill down on books I'm thinking a trip to the library is in order

Read on these:

http://www.thoughtsonphotography.com/
http://photohistory.jeffcurto.com/
http://www.photography.ca/blog/

Jethro, baby is really very cute