Photo Shoots

The upside to having my DSLR is that I am able to take pictures of the kids whenever I want and get pretty decent quality pics.  The downside to the DSLR is that I tend to think I'm a photographer and develop all sorts of high expectations for fantastics photos. 

 

I finally snapped some pictures of Sophia for her newborn photos.  I understand now why many professional photographers prefer that newborns be 10 days old or less when they do the photos.  I took these when she was almost 4 weeks old and she wasn't as cooperative as a fresh baby might have been!  In contrast though, I prefer my babies a little more plump, filled out, not scaly, and minus the icky umbilical stump so I like her age at the photos, just not her not-as-willing temperament! 

 

 

 

She was having a great time.  So much for my cute "laying on her tummy, hands propped under chin, sleeping" photo.

I like this shot but it's a little overexposed.  Guess it's time to figure out how to edit in my Photoshop software!

 

Best shot with her looking right at me but the darn pacifer blocks half her face.  Of course!

 

I also wanted to get a good group photo of the kids for the wall.  The big project when my mom was here was to repaint the downstairs.  The red wall is gone now and is the same beige (Balanced Beige from Sherwin Williams in case you were curious) as the rest of the downstairs {minus that gray wall that Jake won't let me paint} and then we put a fresh coat on all the other walls.  We rearranged the kid wall picture arrangement to fit Sophia in and patched all the rest of the holes on the walls so I can change where things are hung.  I needed the frame that the group kid picture was in for Sophia so she would match the other frames.  I have a big 16x20 frame from Ellie's old room decor that I plan to blow the kid picture up to fit in. 

 

Here's the best of that day.  It was quite an ordeal but the toughest child wasn't the baby this time.  Her almost 10 year old sister is getting self-conscious about how she looks in photos and had 3 pages of math homework and her religous ed class that night so she wasn't all that excited about pictures.  If the lighting hadn't been good that afternoon, I probably would have done these a different day!  However, I got a few goodies to pick from:

 

I think this one is the one I'm going to blow up.  Everyone looks decent in it, which is all you can really ask for when trying to photograph 5 children!

Conclusion after these photoshoots?  I'm definitely still learning.  I imagine it isn't as stressful/taxing if you are just the photographer and not the parent of the subjects though.  I have hopes of getting good enough to feel comfortable taking pictures for other people.  I enjoy being behind the camera and it would be a perfect job for the time being with all these little people at home still.  After being home for 4 years, working a year, and then returning home, I'm not sure that I want to have to work for someone else.  If I can do all my dream jobs, I should make almost as much as if I work one full-time job.  Rather than a one-title occupation, I'm just going to be a photographer-Zumba instructor-craft maker/Etsy seller!  Better get going on all that!

Sidenote: Red flower, white headband, and diaper cover all crocheted by yours truly.
 
Grandma Mary - yours was a little big and I wanted to give the pattern a try.  Not as good as yours but it did turn out!  I'm saving your diaper cover for the 3 months photoshoot.