A Star is Born…and Then Jumps on the Bed

Yesterday's portrait shoot with Violet and a tungsten construction lamp was very successful. She is just such a gorgeous little girl (yes, I know she's mine so I'm biased, but it's simply a fact). I took 151 photos and ended up picking 10 of them to work with. She's very patient and follows directions so easily - and then has her own ideas about how she would like to sit, so it's really a very fun mother/daughter activity as well. She wants to help out in post-production, but I'm not really sure how to share that with her just yet. An added benefit of all of this is that she finally let me brush her hair and put it up - generally the shower is a struggle enough but then the idea that I could brush her hair is just more than she can stand. She's so sensitive about it, but when she knew she was getting gussied up for pictures, she barely complained at all. I should just tell her there are hidden cameras at school, then maybe the teachers wouldn't think she was a small homeless child whose mother didn't know any better. Maybe.

The location is the guest bedroom with neutral blankets over the bed. It's not ideal because there are pictures hanging on the wall and I never noticed how spotty the wall is until I was really looking at these pictures. The other reason why that is not an ideal location is because when this house was built apparently the builder's figured that insulation in that room was an unnecessary luxury and so it's generally only about 10 degrees warmer in the room than it is outside. Definitely would not want to have a model come to take nude pictures there, I guess for many reasons. Especially a male model…

I read some portrait tips (yes, that's the level I am at right now) on the Digital Photography School website. It always seems so obvious when you are reading things like '10 helpful portrait tips' but then you realize how much there really is to consider and that you have control over. It's very helpful because otherwise, you don't really know what it is that you can manipulate in order to change the scene the way that you want to. 

I also spent some time yesterday putting my flickr pictures into more groups so that they can be seen by more people. I'm not really sure how that helps, but I feel like it's all part of this self promotion activity that I'm trying to wrap my head around. I really wish I had figured out that I wanted to think about and do photographic work when I was younger and could have studied it under someone, gone to some program, or something. It's really hard just floating around by yourself. So, I'm just trying to consume as much information as possible.