Reinvented Home Movies
Shire not only preserves her own photos and videos, she helps others due the same with her business Reinvented Home Movies, where she takes people’s photos and videos and edits them into a single video, with corrected lighting and sound, as well as music overlays. As the tagline states, Reinvented Home Movies helps you turn your smart phone video clips into classic home movies.
For Shire, this mission is personal. Her dad passed away when she was 18, which made her really think about how we document our lives. Before that, she had enjoyed documenting memories, but losing her father made her really realize the importance of each photo and video clip.
Often, parents take tons of photos of their kids, but who is taking pictures of the parents? Perhaps, we appear in a few shots, but we are more often turning the camera to others, rather than including ourselves. Shire wants to change that. She wants parents to be part of those photos and videos. Our children will cherish these memories someday.
Shire’s Camping Life
Preserving camping photos and videos is a part of Shire’s real life. She and her family purchased a Jayco X213 last summer. Though they had previously enjoyed tent camping, they were ready to switch to the RV life. Shire especially enjoys letting her three boys enjoy the freedom of the campground, as do we!
Technical Photo and Video Tips
Luckily, many of us are already carrying around great equipment for preserving camping photos and videos. Most of our phones have HD or 4K settings, but they are not the default. If you have not switched your phone to one of these settings, Shire recommends Googling the directions for setting your phone to better quality photos and videos. The difference is so amazing it will feel like wearing glasses for the first time!
If you avoid taking videos because you don’t like to toggle back and forth between video and photos, Shire points out that iPhones lets you take photos WHILE taking videos. Who knew?? She’s not 100% sure all phones can do this, but she recommends checking to see if yours can.
Another way to get better photos is to turn the grid on your phone for better framing. If you aren’t familiar with why this is helpful, look into the “photography rule of thirds” for great video and website tutorials about composing better shots.
Finally, Shire recommends taking three images of the same scene: a wide shot, a medium shot, and a close-up detail. While the medium shot is often the most framable, Shire points out that wide shots are fun to look back on in the future since they capture so much more of the surroundings. Close-up detail shots that fill the frame are also fun and creative.
Backing Up Photo and Video Footage
The awesome thing is that you can set these up to automatically backup, which really gives you peace of mind. In addition to this, Shire also saves all of her photos and videos in separate folders on an external hard drive.
Using Chatbooks to Preserve Photo Memories
Check out this post for more about how Stephanie used Chatbooks to preserve our photos and memories.
Documenting your Camping Adventures
Here are a few shots Shire recommends for preserving camping photos and videos:
The Drive to your Destination: This might be a boring shot, but each highway is unique and if you want to be historical here… in MANY years, things will change. This will be a cool shot to show your kids how cars looked different, how street signs appeared, and hopefully, they will return and drive this same route one day!
Your Campsite: Film your campsite, and include the whole camper and your tow vehicle. This is a great way to make sure you have a photo and video. Think about the future and wanting to show the kids what a site looked like. You’ll also be able to show how you set everything up at a site. Don’t be afraid to talk while you record!
A Walking-Behind Shot: Get a shot of the kids hiking up a mountain or walking to the pool to truly freeze a moment in time. The kids don’t know you’re doing this, so it really captures their essences as they walk along.
A Golf Cart Shot: Grab a golf cart, and get photos of the kids riding bikes or skateboarding from the front. Shire recommends having your partner drive while you sit in the back while your kids follow on bikes. If you don’t have a golf cart, another fun shot is to set up a stationary camera and let your kids right their bikes and play in and out of the camera from each side.
Campfire: Photos at the campfire are always blurry, but video is not. Video offers an opportunity to capture these special moments of family togetherness. Have the subject sitting on the opposite side of the camp fire, which will light your subject. Hold the camera still and film.
A Big Thank You to Shire!
We want to give a big thank you to Shire for sharing all of these great tips for preserving our camping photos and videos! Not only is she an active member of our RV Atlas Facebook group, we’ve had the pleasure of actually meeting Shire in person.
She is really as fun as she looks in this photo! Hopefully, she’ll help you capture and preserve your fun camping memories.
Find Shire on Instagram and on YouTube for more about her tips and her business Reinvented Home Movies!
