Photography - My Hobby, My Love

I love photography and am spending a lot of time learning as much as I can about it.  I spend a lot of time searching Pinterest, Flickr, and various blogs for inspiration and taking pictures of everything and anything I can (I think Eric and Graecyn get a little tired of me always taking pictures and I do my best to be in the moment with them, but sometimes, you just have to stop and capture that moment!).

I recently posted a picture on Instagram (follow me @brookejtaylor) and did my first ever hashtags to a few of the photography groups I follow.  This was a big moment for me - this would mean that people other than my close friends and family would see my pictures.  I was so nervous and deleted and retyped the hashtags a few times before finally taking a deep breath and hitting submit.  And then waited and secretly prayed for someone, a stranger, to "like" my photo…and they did! :-)

Any opportunity I have to do a photo shoot with Graecyn, I do.  It's getting harder and harder to do with her because she only "cooperates" for about 3 minutes (if that) and it usually takes a miracle (or Eric making silly faces behind my head) to get a photo of her actually looking at the camera.  With it being so cold and snowy outside, I have to get extra creative with our indoor photo shoots and try to think of new backdrop ideas.

A friend of mine, who just so happens to be an AMAZING photographer, recently asked me to share how I make some of my backdrops, so Libba, this post is for you. :-)

For Graecyn's Valentine's pictures, I knew I wanted to have a heart garland.  Last year, I made my own garland by cutting various sized hearts out of scrapbook paper and sewing them together with my sewing machine.  This year, I added another garland made from paper heart doilies (purchased at Party City), a hole punch, and thick string that I already had on hand.  Our house is not the best for taking indoor photos (I don't always have access to the best natural light at times when I know Graecyn will be most cooperative), so I finally settled on using our guest room.  I had some "weathered wood" bulletin board paper on hand from a photo shoot I did with Graecyn when she was 10 months (you can find a roll of this paper at Michaels or Amazon for around $8) and decided to use it as my backdrop.  I taped it up using painter's tape (so that I wouldn't damage the paint) and let the  extra paper roll underneath the white featherbed that I layed out on the floor to hide the carpet (that way I didn't have to cut the paper and can use it again in the future).  A few pillows to hide the seam between the featherbed and paper and a heart-shaped sucker to keep my model happy (good timing and luck help too) and you've got yourself a photo.

Before editing - see the blue painter's tape?

After editing