blessing

On her 6 month mark, I took Emilia in for some photos.  I haven't done any "professional" photos, because technically that is why I have my camera.  However, I take photos as a hobby and I don't think of myself or the photos as exactly professional.  Then again, after the photo session - I'm wondering if I just put in a few more hours and actually read the manual for my camera if I can't up my game that much more to never set foot in a studio.  Ever again.  For the most part I'm always so disappointed in the results!  I don't visit really expensive photography studios - as much as I love pictures I just can't spend hundreds of dollars on a photo session.  So, we usually end up at something like the Picture People.  Back in the day of Madeleine and Bryson as babies I thought Picture People was the bomb.  Then again, I didn't have a really nice camera.  Still, I would mostly take in my own props, and have a clear vision of the picture(s) I wanted to walk out with.  All in all, that set-up worked for quite some time and a few weeks ago when a Groupon came through for a session at Picture People I decided to give it a try with Emilia....after all, I have wanted to get a nice picture of her in her blessing dress (yes - her blessing was like 3 months ago, but I wanted to wait until she could sit up to get the photo).

So, what did we experience?  Well, I hauled in our own props...of course.  And it wasn't just a flower or a basket - I took in my Grandma Miller's old antique chair that my mother inherited.  I loved the old style and thought it would be beautiful with Emilia's vintage looking dress.  The girl seemed to be getting a lot of smiles out of Emilia, but when we started to go through the pictures I noticed that she was just off a few seconds in getting the "golden" photo.  There were a good handful of pictures that I liked, and I did choose my favorite - but when they were printed off I realized that the girl made a huge mistake....one I should have caught!  She put our antique chair covered in a dark red wine/burgundy color, against a backdrop of the same color!  Granted there were some designs in the backdrop, something like a Fleur De Lis, but it was A  LOT of red, and after quickly glancing at the photos I haven't been able to look at them again.  I'm tempted to take them back and have them do a vintage tint on them - or maybe in a few days I'll take them out and be in love with them.  

With that, I decided afterwards to just try my own skills at the same picture - except outside and getting some natural light.  Here are my results (without any editing, because that is part of the skills I need to learn).