Staging Baby Photos in Your Home

My last two babies were born 6 1/2 and 4 1/2 years ago. Before the time of pinterest and what I knew of picasa/picnik, photo styling and all that jazz. So, my other two lovely baby boys do not have many decent baby shots in the slighteset. It's so sad, I know, and I have lots of regrets of not taking them to get amazing baby photos taken. But I have no excuses this time around, so I went a-pinteresting and found some excellent tutorials on how to set up a staging area in your home to get some good quality photos using natural light.  I highly recommend these tutorials: how to pose and work with newborns, Simple Portrait Set-Up , Creating a Mini-Studio in Your Home , Tips on Photographing Children and What to Wear for Family Photos. We are also having pro photos this weekend and so I have been pinning tons of family photo ideas as well. Check out my Photography Tips and Ideas pinboard to see all the goodies.

I think these photos of 2 1/2 week old Miss Elisabeth Rose turned out quite well for a non-pro such as myself. And while she is as precious as pie in the lacy, pearly, jeweled dress-up shots, she is truly my little angel baby in her natural state of nekkid gorgeousness.

 

 

Inspired Rooms: Rachel Whiting

"Rachel Whiting is a London based freelance photographer who loves modern interior design and clean lines.Like an interior photography must be sensitive to all the elements that will appear in the final print.All the objects from a room look good, but in a print, these objects may cluster the image."-homedit

Whilst not all her interiors are so bright and colorful, they are similar in that  "her photographic work is constructed with an inherent aesthetic of simplicity, shape, color and form evident throughout all of
her images.  "

The rooms she shoots have a certain ethereal function from them. From the airy white draped windows and the bright light cascading onto the white plank floors, the full length canvases of pink leaned against unfussy walls, the classically simple, yet questionably uncluttered rooms are so quiet and yet so full of an almost bohemian character. I do believe I could get used to living in a room with such qualities.

 

Christmas Gifting Ingenuity

christmas cake bunting by kiki laru

I've been thinking of Christmas, which leads me to budgets but also to character of creating something a person may actually enjoy. I believe that homemade and vintage elements for home decorating, packaging and gifting can be done simply and inexpensively with a bit of ingenuity.

vintage Christmas card from carolyn killingsworth

 Vintage Eskimo child and artic animals card, would be adorable matted in a lovely frame with some wintery white german glass glitter accents.

 paper mache giraffe (tutorial) by dreamy whites

these homemade figurines are easy enough for children, but classic enough to be inspired by antrhopologie.

 prada compilation photograph  by lush bella

Purchase a collage board photograph, or create your own. Use momentos of your loved one's cherished items and special things, to create a lovely piece of art.

toy wreath (tutorial) by infarrantly creative

A visit to Goodwill, garage sales, ebay, your kid's or neighbors toybox, consignment shops and you will be so lucky to find a plethora broken toys beyond repair. Instead of throwing them out, wire and hot glue them to a wreath form for a quirky addition to your child's room or playroom. Or, make a hanging mobile from them, here!

raw and romantic message board by faded prairie

I truly adore this. A rusted, vintage oven grill, used as a memory board, Tie on some lovely mementos, add a few tea stained clothing clips and you have a beautiful find for that junkin' treasure girl.

Family Time: Impromptu Couples Photo Shoot

It was my mother's birthday, and we gathered with all six grandson's for a nice 'ole time at my sister's. Boys, taking a break from the trampoline to devour some cake, us ladies, sitting around chatting, and the one lone male adult was nowhere to be found.

I wondered outside, and here he was, sitting on this roof, reflecting, looking at a cut on his hand from climbing a fence. But, man was not meant to be alone... so I moseyed on over to that swing set behind this adorable shed and heft myself up, all clumsily ninja like. I've lost my stealth.

Then, my sister came out to see what we crazy kids were up to and started snapping pictures.

It turned out to be a good day for an impromptu photo op.

When was the last time you had a little unplanned photo time with your sweetheart? Something you could frame? Anytime is a good time to do it. Seriously, just go grab a friend who can take a semi decent photo, act natural and kind of half hug and stuff for twenty minutes in a semi attractive background. Then upload your photos to Picasa or some other user friendly photo editing program like Picnik, and crop out unsightly background things (like a pooping dog in the corner, telephone line, dead patch of grass or a garbage can), brighten photos or whatever you need for a semi decent shot. It'll be a nice change to have something casual and impromptu.

 And free. Never forget the free part. Have fun with angles and don't be afraid to be yourself. I Heart Faces has lots of good ideas on styling and photo editing. A few more good photography and styling resources here, and here. I will probably go in a add some warmth and haze to some of the photos for a dreamy effect. You can do whatever you want. Making the photos black and white or sepia toned is a nice choice if you question the color or photographer's skills, or if your outfits don't match. Maybe the photos won't be the highest of quality, or won't be blow up poster size, but that isn't what matters.

Feet pictures are safe and trendy. No shiny foreheads, muffin tops, weird hump back shots, windy hair, goofy smiles, half blinks, bra straps, food in teeth, inappropriate giggling, balding spots or gobble necks to hide here.

Perspective shots are fun. And to think I cut almost six inches off of my hair yesterday. I can't believe it was that long, and I, a woman who has sported a shaved head... already miss it.

So un-ninja like, he helped me down. It's nice getting older, and losing our swiftness and agility together. One day, we plan on going grocery shopping in bath robes, slippers and canes, [mildly] swearing up a storm and being rude elderly people to those cursed teens, just for the fun of it.

But for now, we will start [next week] working on getting back in shape together and trimming down those gobble necks and love handles.

Engagement Photography Session: Breakfast in the Meadow

Simply Bloom Photography did an amazing job on this staged engagement shoot. They call it, "Breakfast in the Meadow: Vintage Wedding Photography" and I believe it is truly perfect. Visit the link to see more of these beautiful shots. The farm eggs, tea and honey and dessert theme mixed with the vintage linens for a tent is so romantic with dreamy lighting and color tones.

Homefront: The White Moth

So lovely. We saw this almost pure white moth resting outside our door. She was so courteous to stay poised long enough for me to run inside, grab my camera and snap a few pictures.

 What a fashionita! Wearing a fur ruff gracefully about her on this fine, Spring day.

The last time I found a pure white moth, I was absolutely mystified. I was probably about 6 and held her all day, very gently stroking her pretty wings and soft body, singing her quiet little songs I made up for her.

Choose Happiness

I've been frustrated. Lots things out of my comfort zone that I am going to have to confront very soon. (Why can't people just be 'somewhat' normal for heaven's sake!?) But, I am not going to let it conquer my day and will move forward.

*choose happiness chalkboard photograph (and plenty of other amazing photos) for sale by sweet blue.

Creating Heart Bokeh Using Picnik

In this post, I talked about bokeh, and it's beauty. There are many ways of acheiving the look, you can either create a mask for your lens to create it physically or use photoshop brushes. Well, regular point and shoot cameras like mine won't accept a lens nor work in that capacity, and I dont have photoshop, so I decided to create my own... for free.

I used Urban Pink's Palm tree bokeh style, in that it focused on a stream of light around the trees for the inspiration of this photo.

My husband took this beautiful picture on a lovely October day in 2009 from our 3rd floor balcony. We joked with our toddler how we lived in the trees because all of our windows were surrounded by leaves.

First, I uploaded this photo to Picnik. I cropped it, brightened the exposure a bit and that was it for prepping the photo.

Second, I went to "create", then "stickers". I choose the heart sticker under "basic shapes" for this photo. (Click on photos to zoom)

I made one heart in the desired opacity, size and color, then simply duplicated it about 25 times. You duplicate by right clicking on the image and chosing "duplicate".  After that, I duplicated another heart in a different color and kept going. I have a pink, orange, yellow, teal and white. I would probably go with less colors next time, but I wanted full impact since this is a tutorial. With a few hearts, I went back and made the opacity a little less and some a little stronger.

I now continued to spread my hearts around. Remember, they need to clump and overlap in places. I started with a central point and went out from their in thinning tangents for a natural distribution feel.

There isn't much more you can do to the bokeh hearts at this point, because they are only stickers. So any effects you do on the photo won't apply to them. So, save your photo under a working name and close this one out.

Now, you are going to reupload your photo. Notice now, the hearts are flattened and are officially part of the photo.

We now are going to work on making those hearts glow and softening their edges. I first went to "create", then "effects" and used a bit of "ortonish" to enhance the overall color of the picture and the hearts.

Then, I went to "soft focus" and put it on it's strongest setting. When you do this, it softens the whole photo, which is not what I want. So, I go to the tool box that appears and choose my brush size and strength. I take me tool (the circle) and simply erase where I don't want the softening. I erase it from the trees and on some of the hearts so that not all hearts are totally softened.

After that is complete. I save it and go on to "boost". This is what is going to add that glow! I adjust it and save.

After the glow, the softening and color is perfect! BUT, some of the defintion in those lovely clouds on the right is lost. So, I go over to "touch up" and choose my trusty "mascara" wand. I use this tool all the time to bring back definition. I just go over the clouds, the tree line and a few select hearts.

While still under the "touch up" tab, even though some hearts are softer, I would like to blur  some of the edges a tad more.  So I go to "air brush" make a small wand and air brush some of the heart lines.

Now, I go back to the "effects" tab, then to "vingette", and add a soft layer of black. It really adds more depth to the photo and brings the focus where I want it to go.

So, maybe I went a little overkill with the hearts, but this was just an excersize and my first time as I documented my process as I went.  I decided to play with sizes and lessen the cloud of hearts, remove the orange ones and make more clumpings.... and I love it!

I added a few faded white circles to the corners in the larger hearts for some depth. I also removed the "vingette" and the "boost" was bright and beautiful, but I added some "gritty" to the photo to add some character, lessen the brightness and make it more like a dream.

This is merely an example of how playing around with an image and pushing your imagination takes you places you never thought you could go. So, save your work and enjoy! Next time, try hexagons, circles, stars, different colors or all white or a lovely mix :) I would love to see what you do!!

BIG GIANT PS!!! If that above was too complicated, Picnik has a built in Bokeh stamp! It's hearts and they sit at an angle, You just apply it to your photo, adjust the size, hardness and strength and you can edit the hearts on your page. To find them, just upload your photo, go to "create", then "seasonal" and then "valentines". You can either erase them where you want them gone, or hit the "reverse" check box and paint them on where you like. Easy!

*Picnik is a free photo editing tool that you just upload your photos to their website, no need to download the program. I have the ugraded membership which allows me to use the premium features (like mascara), but most of what I did here can be used on the free membership.