Whenever I get ready to release a new Wall Display product I sort of go into lockdown mode.  It’s just the only way I can get it done and out the door. Unfortunately, (depending on how you look at it!) it’s also been crazy busy season photography wise. The long winter is finally over and everyone and their brother wants family photos all of the sudden. Normally that would be a good thing, but there’s only one of me and so little time so even just the last two shoots I’ve done have pushed me over the edge of having NO time to get everything done!

PLUS we have a lot going on at home too,  not the least of which is that we’ve decided to sell becoming-home (or try anyway in this crappy market) so there goes any remote hope of a free second I might have.

But, before all hell broke loose I was a woman on a mission.. a mission to find and do a photoshoot in a field of the beautiful yellow dandelion flowers before they turned into actual dandelions. This was easier said than done – I saw them every day on my way to work in the median of the highway, but had the hardest time finding a safe place to shoot with kids that also had them until I struck gold at a little field next to my gym parking lot!

Now, what to shoot..?  Somewhere along the line I came up with the idea of a teddy bear picnic with Jasper and his friend Peyton.  When I was little we used to have a these amazing Teddy Bear picnic illustrations that hung first on my walls and later my sister’s.  We were fascinated by them.  And of course you know about Jasper and his Bear, so it all seemed perfect.

I had to go out and buy the picnic blanket and basket from homegoods, but I’m pretty sure I’ll use the set up again with clients. The bears of course we already had!

The outfits were the part I worried about the most, but I bought them together at H&M so I was able to get something in a similar color story. The tricky part was making them early spring proof- it wasn’t yet all that warm around sunset, so I couldn’t have Peytie sleeveless and Jasper in short sleeves!

It was pure luck that Jasper happened to have a bright turquoise long sleeve shirt that matched and I was so lucky that Peyton’s mommy went out to BRU and picked up up just he right shade of fuchsia little cardigan for her. I was very happy with how the styling came out.  In fact, if I could only ever do concept shoots like this for myself I would be totally content.. it’s so much fun!

Also, I highly recommend this sort of thing for the 2-4 age group – like the valentine’s day cookie shoot, this picnic shoot gave them something to do (cheers your glasses, eat an animal cookie!) which really helped keep them on the blanket instead of running around wild which things DID deteriorate to at the end, but not before I got the shots I wanted!

And finally – here are the pics!

I shot all of these with my canon 70-200 II (of course, I LOVE that lens!) and the processing was something totally new for me. I don’t usually go for that vintage look – but it totally felt right for these images, and gave me an excuse to finally try out Florbella Collection actions. It was fun to mix and match the different effects (I think I used Hibiscus, Swoon AND Mademoisella all at ~ 20% opacity plus the pastel tints and hazes.)

Now, since these are photos purely for me and don’t need to be prepped and delivered to the client, what do with them? I was happy with how them came out, so I want them to have a life beyond the jpg..

First I decided to order the second to last image of Peyton standing with her bear as a 16×20 canvas from H&H as a gift for Peyton’s parents.

It was actually the first time I’d ordered canvas from H&H and it TOTALLY blew me away.  The colors of course were fabulous, but what I couldn’t get over was the backing. I seriously didn’t know canvas could be wrapped that tight or perfectly, or the back finished so impeccably.  And what was even more amazing was that they totally bent over backwards to get it to me for mother’s day. I seriously love H&H and I’m so so proud to be working with them to have my wall guides and their clusters be compatible (same names, sizes etc.)

The other product that I recently found and am totally in love with is Oh Snap Boutique. I don’t know where it’s been all my life but along with Angie Monson’s Simplicity Designs, this is my new favorite source for cute, whimsical album templates. You have to check it out!  I went on a bit of a buying spree during the mother’s day sale and scored this “Whimsy Garden” template that is perfect for the bear picnic shoot:

and I couldn’t resist the accordion mini template:

or this one..

and I had to have the own one of course!!!

Well, you get the picture. I have a LOT of new studio samples to make – and of course no time to do it!

Next blog post (if anyone is still reading) will be about my first twins shoot.. yikes!

It was totally adorable, but completely chaotic!

Picture 20+ kids, some of whom can’t really ride a tricycle riding around a parking lot that had a lowgrade slope at one end such that they would go down one side really fast and then get stuck at the other side needing assitance to get back up the “hill”.

Jasper was PARTICULARLY annoyed at having to pedal up hill, so much so that he would get to the bottom and start fake crying demanding for me to push him back up.  As you can imagine, this greatly impeded my ability to take photos of the event!  But, I did manage to capture some of the essence of Jasper and his badass Trikey.

It was kind of the envy of all the kids and teachers – it’s actually scary how much he looks like he could be on a Harley Lowrider in some of these pictures…

On your marks, get set.. go!

Drinking water after to cool down:

I have a lot of individual portraits of the kids, but I don’t have model releases for everyone so can’t really share them all here :(

I used my 70-200 for these, as I have a hard time taking that lens of my camera I love it so much!

It was HOT (like 80+ degrees hot) and very sunny, so it was challenging not to get too many blowouts from the sun without underexposing horribly, but I did have to underexpose some.

So to edit these, I used the “bright all over” and “basic contrast color keeper” from Michelle Kane’s actions that I’m having a lot of fun with right now. It actually went super quick, I didn’t really need to do anything else.  I think the trick with sunny conditions is to use a LOT of “fill light” in post, which you can achieve by doing a curves adjustment layer and pulling up the midtones a bunch.  It fills in the harsh shadows from the sun.

So that’s the trikeathon report, I hope to have some new images to share on Monday..

Have a great weekend!

I had toyed with the idea of doing mini sessions this year with the set up, but I just have too much on my plate right now to commit to editing and designing cards for a ton of sessions. Instead I will use the photos to market the mini sessions for next year!

Nearly the whole weekend was devoted to this, Saturday morning we went to Ikea so I could buy the little table (it’s actually just the lack side table!) and Saturday afternoon my best friend and culinary school graduate Alexis came over to my mom’s house and we baked and decorated the cookies.

Sunday, the day of the shoot, we had to bring the kitchen, the table, Jasper and all my props over to my parents’ house so we could shoot in the vacant apartment above their house. Here’s where Jeff deserves a HUGE thank you for, among other things, carying that 90 lb play kitchen up and down several flights of stairs  in the snow!   I couldn’t have done it without him, and he didn’t even roll his eyes once, so thanks babe!

I had bought several props that Jasper flat out refused to wear, including a super cute chef’s hat and coat. I was lucky he even wore the red tie – not very willingly -and the apron for 3 shots.  (I got the checkered shirt with tie from H&M!) The other problem were the little cookies we made with the red sugar on top. Those were the first ones Jasper ate and not only were they getting red sugar EVERYWHERE but they instantly turned his mouth blood red. He looked like a vampire!  I told him we’d eat those cookies later and to eat one of the other ones – but of course he only wanted to eat those because he couldn’t have them.  He actually started crying hysterically, which made me start panicking – I couldn’t believe this whole shoot was in jeopardy over some stupid red sugar!  Jeff finally managed to calm him down and Jasper settled into following our instructions on how to make the cookies.

This is where the set up is brilliant, kids LOVE to make pretend so it was incredibly easy to get them to cooperate and stay put as we told them to stir the heart shaped bowl, roll out the cookie dough, put the cookies in the oven etc.

Here are some of the shots of Jasper – his face never really recovered from the bright red die, but you can’t tell too much: (see my photography website for bigger better versions of these photos!)

Then, it was time for nap. After nap, Sophia (Jasper’s friend from Gymboree) came over to get in on the action. How cute does she look in that apron and her little bow headband?

Now, all I have to do is design some cute little cards.. I’m thinking maybe the new 5×5 scalloped die cut cards from Simply Color Lab and the tagline “I’m Sweet on You” or something.

If anyone wants to know, I have details of where I got all the props in this post. And I have to give credit again to Sandy Wegerman for her brilliant idea and the inspiration for this shoot. Thanks Sandy!

And a happy early Valentine’s Day to all….xoxo.

So, here is the “recipe” that I have come up with for the shoot:

Ingredients:

1 ) Inspiration: Valentine’s Day Cookie Baking shoot by Sandy Wegerman of Lucky Ladybug Photography:

(All images taken by Sandy and used her with her permission.)

2) A kitchen!  Sandy’s mother in Law found this adorable one at a garage sale for $10! I guess it’s not “lucky ladybug” for nothing :)  But any kitchen will do, I of course plan on using Jasper’s new Ree Retro Kitchen which couldn’t be a more perfect color: (it also comes in pink!)

2) Outfit for the little one.  Sandy’s daughter’s apron is just perfect! Jeff only mildly protested that Jasper’s kitchen was a girl’s toy, but I think I might be pushing my luck by putting Jasper in a pink apron.  Instead I ordered this cute little Melissa & Doug’s chef’s outfit:

I also ordered this cute red apron on sale at Kohls for just $9.99 in case I end up doing mini sessions or any girl shoots with the set up:

It says on the site that it’s reversable, though they don’t show a picture. Sounds cute though and you can’t beat the price.

3) Accessories, accessories accessories!  Target to the rescue.. I scored a heart shaped red mixing bowl, red and pink heart shaped plates, those xoxo blocks (which also reverse to say things like hugs and love etc) heart measuring spoons like the ones in the inspiration images and some other stuff that I can’t even remember at the moment. It kind of looks like cupid threw up all over the target seasonal dollar spot section, so you won’t be disappointed if you go there looking for Valentine’s day stuff!

4 ) Combine child, kitchen and accessories in a well lit room, adjust to taste.   Shoot until toddler melt’s down and cools off.

5) Enjoy (and let me know how it turns out!)

I still have a few things left to find, like a small table – we have the small chairs from ikea, but not table. Not sure we have room for one or want to buy one just for this shoot so we’ll see. The other prop of course is the cookies themselves! I figure we’ll start early one morning, bake the cookies and then shoot and decorate a few hours later when they are ready. That way it’s a fun activity all around and not just another torture-by-photography session.

I originally had planned on offering mini sessions with the set up, but given the short time-line to Valentine’s day and me leaving for ImagingUSA this weekend I don’t think it’s realistic. But, I’m hoping that if I decide to do it next year I’ll have some great promo shots! :)

I had SUCH a hard time finding the right thing for Jasper to wear.  I went to Old Navy thinking I’d get a cute puffer vest or something but they were completely sold out of 2T sizes in everything. In the end, I decided on the cute mock turtleneck shirt I bought at Zara kids in LA (the Zaras on the eastcoast don’t have kids sections so I made sure to hit that up when we were in CA!) and his baby Gap “skinny jeans.” Originally I had wanted something a bit brighter, but the olive worked nicely with the reds in the leaves.

Normally shoots with Jasper are exhausting and frustrating because two  is a tough age – he pretty much just runs around without stopping the whole time.  But Daddy was an excellent baby wrangler – most of the shots you see here Jeff was behind me gathering leaves to drop on my head which Jasper found hysterical!

The ones at the end in the hat, I told Jasper that if he stood REALLY still maybe the Gruffalo (a favorite story character) would come out of the woods. That was worth about 10 shots!

I am really happy that we took the time to do a real “photoshoot” with Jasper, he’s at such a crossroads between baby and kid and I just want to freeze these moments in time so I remember him at this age forever…

Here’s my little charmer (getting him to STOP running down this road and look at mommy was nearly impossible!)

One thing I learned during this shoot is that dark backgrounds make for so much richer b&w conversions as well as better backlit shots!  I often do backlighting against the sky, but then you lose that beautiful rim of light around the subject.

The dark red leaves look make this look great in b&w too:

I shot all of these with the 70-200 wide open at around 2.8..I think next time I do backlighting I’m going to try closing down my ap a bit to get less haze and see how that works!

PS: Doesn’t Jasper here:

look just like me here?

That was for Jeff who refuses to acknowledge that Jasper doesn’t get ALL his looks from him! The cute thing is that whenever Jasper sees a picture of “baby mommy” and we ask him who it is he says “Jasper!”

(or Paci Yo?)

Doesn’t he look so different in a hat? That’s why photographers LOVE hats – you can practically achieve a whole new look just by putting on or switching hats.  Unfortunately, MY little guy hasn’t consented to wear a hat since he was about 4 months old and still lacked the skills to pull it off his head!

So you can imagine my surprise when Jasper came bounding down the stairs after Daddy got him dressed and I saw this.

I quickly grabbed my camera and my widest lens (the Tamron 28-75) and prayed that Jasper would stand close enough to the sliding glass door for there to be enough light (it was dark and dreary that morning.)

Somehow, it all worked out, and even at 1250 ISO it looks noise free with a slight adjustment of the luminence noise slider in Lightroom 3 (LOVE that!)!  I also forgot what great closeups the tammy takes- for these type of shots it’s as sharp as any L lens, and sharper than some!

I hope you all had a good weekend, I worked on the elements version of my templates all weekend and am happy to announce they should be available tonight!

Woohoo :)

They had been through some difficult times, and Cathy wanted to document what I think of as finally getting to the light at the end of a dark tunnel.. and so how appropriate that we found the most BEAUTIFUL light to surround him in?

I have to say, it wasn’t easy.  I had this session planned out perfectly in my head, we were going to meet at the Vanderbilt mansion in Poughkeepsie but at the last minute we realized that Chelsea Clinton was getting married in the area.  Thank GOD we figured that one out, we would have been sitting at security checkpoints all day!

After a few hours of furious googling, I found what I THOUGHT was the perfect compromise, an abandoned Westchester mansion who’s grounds were open from dawn ’til dusk.. or so the park’s service website said. Of course, when we got there the sign said it closed at 4pm (it was 6pm at this point). So we missed out on the beautiful garden which was padlocked shut, but we did manage to find some other beautiful spots on the grounds, like the road to the house:

and a brick stairway that was almost as big as a small amphitheater:

This was also the first time I’d used my new (old) turqouise chair outdoors.  You would not believe how hard it is to find a plain old wood chair around here. Seriously, I scoured Craigslist, ebay local, Goodwill and could not find anything like it. Finally, I heard that the Salvation Army store in Portchester had a floor dedicated to furniture which is where I finally found this one (for $7!)

All in all it turned out wonderfully, just as I had planned and the best part was hearing from Cathy how much she and her husband loved the images.. that’s the most rewarding part of doing what I do, and WHY I want to keep doing it as long as I can.

All shots taken with my Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 70-200L f/2.8 IS II lens. View more, bigger better on my photography website.

We got to the shoot location and the SECOND they set her down she was off running and didn’t stop the whole session! Literally RUNNING away from me!  She wanted nothing to do with even being held for a shot with mom or dad, and certainly didn’t want to stand still or look at me. That is, until I brought out the pez bunny!

For those of you who don’t know, Pez dispensers fit into the hot shoe of your camera.  As is, they fit with the character facing you (obviously not very useful) but you can trim the edges a tiny bit with a strong scissors and they will slide in with the character facing your subject too.

I had only pulled the bunny (and my kazoo!) out in desperation, not really sure if she’d show any interest, but she IMMEDIATELY wanted to pet the bunny.  I told her that the bunny was shy and that if she got too close he’d want to run away (and then I’d take a few steps back to demonstrate.)   Then in a stroke of desperation inspiration I held the Pez bunny up to my ear as if he were talking to me and said “The bunny said you should go sit with mommy and daddy and give them a hug!”  At which point she would run over to mom and dad and sit for maybe half a second (and I’d snap snap snap) and then get up and run over to me again for bunny’s next instruction.

All I can say is THANK GOD for bunny!  I honestly don’t think I’d have been able to get a full gallery’s worth of images if he hadn’t been in my bag.   So, thanks to bunny, we got a few good shots Saturday:

All images shot with my canon Canon 5D Mark II and the magic lens (Canon 70-200L 2.8 IS II) at around f 3.2, and SS around 320 or so depending on the light.

So, if you are a photographer or just a hobbyist or a mom with a stubborn toddler, you may want to try having imaginary conversations with Pez dispensers. Cause, you know, we don’t act crazy enough already trying to get our kids to look at the camera!! ;)

He definitely made me work for it.. I was there for 5 hours and he slept for maybe a total of 30 minutes? And when we tried to pose him he just did not want to be moved. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes, you get a few good shots and that’s all the little guys want to give you. Nothing you can do about that! At least, at very least I we got this pose that I had in my mind pretty much as soon as I found out they were pregnant:

I had planned on a few variations of that pose, but Bodhi had other ideas and started crying about half a second later!

You can see how much he was fighting the sleep here in this one- *Yawn!*

More, bigger and better on my photography website..

Right from the shoot, I went to Jasper’s friend Peyton’s birthday party and was going to meet Jeff and Jasper there.. I pulled up to the house and noticed the lack of cars and had the distinct feeling that I had gotten the days confused.. turns out I had, sort of.   Actually, Peyton’s mom Ami had changed the date from Saturday to Sunday and forgot to copy us on the email changing the dates., but it turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise when our impromptu playdate turned into a huge celebration when their lost cat returned 5 minutes after we arrived! Plus, instead of sharing birthday girl Peyton with all of her partygoing admirers on Sunday we got to have her for a private celebration:

Jasper was happy too, he even let Peyton get a good smooch in:

He usually plays hard to get, but I guess he made an exception for her birthday!

In other news, Jasper is crying much less at bedtime, but still lets out a few heartbreaking wails and is still sleeping on the floor.  I no longer think it’s just a case of that he’s sleepy so he wears himself out and collapses on the floor, he actually PREFERS the floor!  And I know this because I say “Jasper, let’s lie down and cuddle in your “big boy” or “cowboy” bed as we call it (in his favorite book the Brave Cowboy the cowboy has a big boy bed so I started calling it the cowboy bed in hopes that he’d want to emulate his little hero) and he says “No, Floor” and and lays down on the blanket on the floor next to his bed.

So I think the new plan will be to bring the futon from our guest room into his room and use that for the time being.. the dilemma is what to do with his bed? We can’t take it down unless we never want to use it again because of the stripped screws holding the mattress support. I don’t know if he’ll ALWAYS want to sleep on the floor!  Plus, it looks soooo cute right now because in a last ditch effort to make his “cowboy” bed more appealing we put his old crib bumpers up around the edges to make it so cute and cozy.

So that’s my weekend recap.. I have some canvases arriving today – can’t WAIT to share and review them with you all!

I used my (rented) dream lens the 70-200m 2.8 IS II and I really don’t think I’ll be able to part with it come Thursday when I have to send it back. I was worried that I would have to keep backing up too far but the minimum focus distance on this lens has been shortened since the I version so the only reason I had to back up was so that I could use it towards the dreamy 200mm end and get creamy bokeh like this:

The new location I found was PERFECT, though the cliffs made the sun set too early for backlighting which I was hoping for. Still, the clover dotted field with the forest behind really frames this gorgeous family well:

All images shot with my Canon 5D Mark II and rented Canon 70-200mm 2.8 IS II at 2.8, around 800SS and 32o ISO.

I shot the whole shoot wide open at 2.8 and I think I missed maybe 1 shot due to focus?  I guess that image stabilization really helps, and the AF is quick!

See bigger and better on my photography website.  Hope you all had a great weekend!